On Wednesday the National Hockey League officially released the 2025-26 schedule, giving fans the opportunity to see exactly what obstacles lay in the way of a playoff berth. When it comes to our Winnipeg Jets, I didn’t really get the chance to dive into the schedule fully until this weekend….but now that I have, I figured I might as well lay out what I discovered is in store for the True North franchise this season.
I am not planning on outlining each game in this article, so if you want to see the entire schedule, following the link below to ESPN:
https://www.espn.com/nhl/team/schedule/_/name/wpg/seasontype/2
By using last year’s results, I will attempt to assess the strength of competition Winnipeg can expect this year. Statistically, of the 16 NHL clubs that qualified for the playoffs last year, only 2 to 4 of them will fail to make the playoffs this year….so it should at least put us in the ballpark of when the Jets will face the top half of the league. However, before I get to that…here are some other highlights for the upcoming campaign:
Back-to-Backs: (8)
Road trips:
Home stands:
Because of the break required for NHL players to participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics (Feb 5th to 24th), once again the clubs will face a condensed schedule and that resulted in Winnipeg having more back-to-back situations than last year when the Four Nations tournament disrupted things (6 vs 8).
November will be a travel heavy month for the Jets, as they will play 69% of the games on the road (9 of 13), which is just ahead of April’s 62.5% (5 of 8). Yet it is during the limited NHL action in February that Winnipeg will visit the opposition’s arenas most often (75% – 3 of 4). Other than the break even month of December (7 of 14), the True Northers will hit the ice at the Canada Life Centre more often for the remaining periods: October (63.6%), January (56.3%), & March (62.5%).
In the graphic below, I broke down the Winnipeg Jets’ schedule by month, outlining home/road games and the strength of opposition our team will face.
A positive sign that the Jets’ path to the playoffs might be easier than normal is due to it going through clubs that earned an average of 89.6 points last year, which wouldn’t have been enough to qualify for the post-season (96 pts in West, 91 pts in East).
Another good omen for Winnipeg is the lack of top end competition early on in the season. With captain Adam Lowry having hip surgery on May 27th and expected to need 5 or 6 months to recover, it is nice to see that the Jets’ early bouts won’t include many playoff teams (just 4 of the opening 21 contests). When I pull out the calendar, it would seem that we might expect the big center to return sometime between October 13th and November 10th, which could see Lowry only missing 2/3 regular season matches (vs DAL, LA, NYI) up to 15/16 clashes (only incl. playoff teams DAL, LA, CAR). That should help our club put up some “W’s” while they await the big guys’ return.
And that is important in the NHL. I’m sure that we’ve all heard the old stat about American Thanksgiving that says any franchise holding onto a playoff spot at that early point of the regular season has an 80% chance of qualifying for the dance. Well, that holiday falls on November 27th this year and Winnipeg will have only played 22 games at that point. With 68% of those contests against the league’s bottom half, it should give the Jets a great chance to grab a playoff spot early.
And they will need it too. The coldest stretch of the year in Manitoba will also provide this year’s club its most difficult test. Once the calendar flips to December, the road gets much bumpier for the Jets, over the next three months Winnipeg will see last year’s playoff teams facing off against them a whopping 73.5% of the time. The month of January in particular is very scary, with 13 of 16 games against the top half, including a stretch of 6 straight contests to kick off the New Year (TOR, OTT, VEG, EDM, LA, NJ).
Fortunately for our squad’s playoff hopes, the schedule eases up in the final two months (24 gms), allowing Winnipeg the opportunity to feast on 62.5% lower half teams as the regular season draws to a close.
Well, that wraps up my look at the upcoming Winnipeg Jets’ schedule. Without knowing exactly what every NHL team will look like when the action kicks off on October 7th, it at least appears the True Northers have a good shot at a return to the post-season. What do you think??
Hockey News