October 9th, the first day of the Jets’ regular season, the most magical day of the year, is less than a week away. Let’s explore some of the expectations for the Jets’ top line. If all three of them can stay healthy together for the majority of the season and support each other on the same line, we should have incredibly high standards for these guys.

I’m excited for this more mature version of Mark Scheifele. He’s entering the first year of his new contract. He’s back on the penalty kill this time with Kyle Connor rather than Blake Wheeler. He was voted 26th in Selke voting in 2018, and from what I have seen from him this preseason under Scott Arniel, we might see Scheifele in the top 20 of Selke voting.

The Jets’ first-ever draft pick hasn’t missed more than 20 games since 2017-18. We know he is an elite athlete and trains hard to keep his downtime to a minimum. I would hope he spent more of his offseason working on his faceoffs; I would like to see him win more than 50% of his faceoff’s this season.

I want to see him score 30 or more goals and would like to see him stay around a point per game, but north of 82 points would be good with me. If he wants to become the highest-scoring 2.0 Jet this season, he would need to score 96 points to overtake Blake Wheeler as sole owner of most points as a 2.0 Jet.

He has two more seasons with the Jets before his contract expires. With the ever-expanding list of Americans who want out of Winnipeg, we might see Connor go. This isn’t a bad thing; the Jets are allowing younger players to grow, and there might be an opening for the younger players to start the 2026-27 season.

Let’s focus on the now and Connor. Last year, prior to his knee injury at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks last December, Connor was keeping pace with Auston Matthews in the goal-scoring race. The injury and having a wedding coming up over the summer slowed him down to scoring 34 goals in 65 games in the regular season.

Aside from that injury, Connor has stayed healthy for the most part in his career. Much like Scheifele, I am excited to see a slightly more detailed defensive game from the Michigan-born NHLer while he is playing on the penalty kill, and hopefully, that translates to better defensive play during 5-on-5.

We should easily see 40 goals or more out of Connor and 75-80 points. If he is popping off and has an unreal full season, we could see 55 goals and 100 points, which would be the highest-scoring 2.0 Jet in a single season.

Vilardi, who was part of the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade, could have his breakout year as a 25-year-old in the last year of his two-year contract, earning 3.6 million dollars this season. He hasn’t played a full season in the NHL yet, as he has dealt with injuries in the early parts of his career. The closest he got to playing a full season was his last year with the LA Kings, where he played 63 games.

The Kingston-born NHLer scored 22 goals in 47 regular season games last year after taking a knee-on-knee hit early last season against his former teammate.

I think a lot of people, including Vilardi, are expecting a full season that is full of goals. Goals make those contracts go up significantly. If he wants to stay in Winnipeg long-term, he will need to stay healthy and find the back of the net often, even if that gets him a title like “power play merchant.” They don’t ask how you scored your goals, just how many you scored.

The new power play unit of Scheifele, Connor, Ehlers, Morrissey, and Vilardi could mean lots of points gained by the five men mentioned.

I expect Vilardi to stay healthy, score 28 even-strength goals, and 23 on the power play for a total of 75 points. From what we saw Wednesday night in the third period, I think that’s what we will see from the Jets forward night in and night out. He is going to want a big contract I want him to get that contract. Knowing  he is going into his prime, and this is just the beginning of great things for Vilardi.