The Winnipeg Jets are now seven games into their 2026-27 NHL regular season following a Thursday night matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Jets are now exactly 9 days away from hosting the Montreal Canadiens at Princess Auto Stadium for the 2026 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic. The preparations and updates to Princess Auto Stadium continue this weekend, but before the latest updates on that upcoming game, there’s some unfortunate injury updates from the Jets over the past few days. Following a 5-1 loss to the Ducks, the Jets bounced back very well against the Wild, winning 5-2 thanks to a two goal performance from Cole Perfetti.

Before looking ahead at the Jets next game and the latest injury updates, we need to quickly look back to the Jets latest game which was in Chicago on Thursday night. It wasn’t the greatest start to the game for the Jets, as Connor Bedard scored his first goal of the season and Frank Nazar added his 3rd goal of the season to give the Blackhawks a 2-0 lead. Neal Pionk got the Jets on the board with 3 minutes left in the 1st, but Ryan Donato gave the Blackhawks a 3-1 lead less than 20 seconds later.

After a pretty disappointing opening twenty minutes, the Jets responded with a much better 2nd and 3rd period. Kyle Connor scored his almost league leading 8th goal of the season in the 2nd, and Alex Iafallo scored his 2nd goal of the season with 15 minutes left in the 3rd. The Jets secured one point as the game went overtime, but it was the Blackhawks who would get the two points as Artyom Levshunov scored to send the Blackhawks fans home happy on this Thursday night. The Jets fell to 4-1-2 on the season, and will have a tough test ahead as they face the 6-1-1 Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon at Canada Life Centre.

The Jets injury report continues to add names following Thursday’s game. Walker Duehr and Garrett Brown are the non-rostered injuries (from the Manitoba Moose), and Connor Hellebuyck remains suspended as the Jets continue to focus on trying to complete his ongoing trade request. Elias Salomonsson is close to returning to game action from his off-season should surgery, although it’s still unclear what his targeted return game will be later in October.

Josh Morrissey was first listed out with a “day to day” injury, but has since been downgraded to “week to week” with an upper body injury. Morrissey appears to have a wrist or hand injury after missing a bodycheck in the first period of the game against the Avalanche on October 7th. The good news is that it’s confirmed that surgery won’t be required, but the bad news is that it looks like Morrissey won’t be able to play in the Heritage Classic on October 25th.

Vladislav Namestnikov will also be out week to week after taking a bad fall during the morning skate before the game against the Blackhawks yesterday. After the game last night Scott Arniel said that Namestnikov felt worse as the day went on, and he’ll be fully examined when they’re back in Winnipeg today.

As for Heritage Classic news, the preparations continue ahead of the 8th Heritage Classic in NHL history and first since 2023. Princess Auto Stadium is slowly adding the branding around the stadium for the big game, and the tarp is now on the field with the ice soon to be installed. Details were recently revealed for the Heritage Classic pre-game, which will take place across the street from the game between 12-5:30 CT to get fans involved and ready before the puck drops at 6. I’ll be at the game next Sunday night, and I’ll be posting content throughout the weekend (including the Alumni game) on the Daily Faceoff Winnipeg Instagram page.

The 2026-27 NHL regular season is now fully underway, with another busy night of hockey coming up on Saturday. Stay tuned here on Daily Faceoff Winnipeg for the latest news on the Jets regular season, as well as articles to preview and recap the Jets next home game on Saturday afternoon against the Carolina Hurricanes.

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