Breaking News: San Antonio Spurs trade for Memphis Grizzlies $300m Super Star Forward.

The San Antonio Spurs trade deadline thinking may be clouded, at least for the time being: They have scarcely been able to enjoy their team at full strength this season.

Gabriel Vilardi’s knee injury was followed by Kyle Connor’s knee injury, which was followed by Mark Scheifele’s injury. Now Vilardi is day to day with a lower-body ailment and numerous other players in the lineup are dealing with their own bumps and bruises. That the Jets lead the Central Division in points (and are a lock to lead the division in points percentage at the All-Star break) is an impressive feat; The goaltending has been great, the five-on-five play has largely been exemplary and the defensive accomplishments have been well earned.

But it’s clear the team game is slipping. This has been true since the end of Winnipeg’s winning streak, when a sold-out crowd watched the Jets pull a win out of the air against Chicago. The Jets were dominated for 40 minutes in Boston on Monday, and the absences of Scheifele and Vilardi weren’t enough to explain it. Rick Bowness called it “the worst game we’ve had in a long time with our breakouts” while Connor critiqued the team’s poor gap and its overall lack of urgency.

Kevin Cheveldayoff and his management team have a difficult job in front of them: They must zoom out beyond the injuries, beyond the horrible power play and beyond the mildest of five-on-five slumps and identify Winnipeg’s most pressing needs.

If Cheveldayoff’s recent stretch of work is any indication, Winnipeg’s biggest deadline-day moves will have an eye on the future, too. Morgan Barron, Elias Salomonsson, Brad Lambert and Thomas Milic are the return for a 2022 Andrew Copp trade that bounced just right; Nino Niederreiter and Vladislav Namestnikov were brought in at the 2023 deadline and then retained past their UFA dates; the PL Dubois return of Vilardi, Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari all came with multiple years of team control.

And don’t forget the reason Winnipeg has cap space at all goes back to Cheveldayoff trading Bryan Little’s contract to Arizona at the 2022 deadline. If the Jets were still managing long-term injured reserve (LTIR) money every single day, they wouldn’t have been able to build up the cap space they can go shopping with now.

So when we wrote our first Jets deadline preview piece, fans were quick to point out the obvious: What if Cheveldayoff goes shopping for a player who is more than a rental? What if the Jets’ big push is for a player who can help the team win now and in the future, too?

In the immediate term, it’s clear the Jets need to get healthy, get to the All-Star break and then get back to their once-elite even strength process.

But Winnipeg seldom makes moves with the immediate term in mind.

So which players with term on their contract could help the Jets make their long-term push?

Casey Mittelstadt, Sabres, C/LW

Age: 25

Contract: $2.5 million cap hit, RFA 2024

Usage: Top six at five-on-five, first PP

Production: 12 goals, 27 assists, 39 points in 46 games

Possession impact*: Neutral

Mittelstadt has been a bright spot in a difficult Sabres season. He’s consolidating last year’s breakout offensive season with a nearly point-per-game surge on a team that’s dealt with injuries and doesn’t look like a playoff threat after missing the postseason by one point in 2022-23.

Mittelstadt’s appeal is multifaceted: he’s a smart, heads-up player with a quick first step. He’s an offensive threat at five-on-five and the power play, thanks to a combination of playmaking vision, finishing ability that earns respect and the hockey sense to choose the right play at the right time. He’s also an impactful two-way player — someone associated with positive defensive impact by models like HockeyViz. Combine all of that with a team-friendly $2.5 million contract that ends with Mittelstadt, 25, as a restricted free agent, and any acquiring team would have a great case for extending him long term.

The knocks? The 6-foot-1 lefty from Eden Prairie, Minn., has won 47.3 percent of his faceoffs this season and 45.4 percent in his career. There are also critics, perhaps long silenced, who watched Mittelstadt struggle early in his career on a miserable Sabres team and wondered if he would ever live up to his draft selection as the No. 8 pick in 2017.

Casey Mittelstadt finds the net through traffic  pic.twitter.com/UgiEBwwfJ3

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 15, 2024

My opinion is that Mittelstadt is likely to be a dynamic, helpful forward for the better part of this contract and the next. He’s shooting 15.8 percent so far this season (his career high is 11.7 percent) while playing 18:38 (his career average is 15:21) and my interpretation is that his offensive explosion is likely tapped out. He’s not a 20-minute player on a contending team but I bet he’d be an impactful one.

I can’t see why the Sabres would move a homegrown player like this. They’ve put in so much time, work and patience and Mittelstadt has arrived as a bona fide top-six forward who helps at both ends of the rink. As exciting as a top six of Scheifele between Connor and Vilardi and Mittelstadt with Cole Perfetti and Nikolaj Ehlers might look, my guess is that the price is exorbitant or the Sabres do the sensible thing and hold on to him.

*I define possession impact as positive, neutral, or negative by using Evolving Hockey’s RAPM tool to summarize each player’s most recent three seasons. My purpose? To include useful information without overestimating how perfectly underlying numbers move with a player from one team to the next.

My criteria: Where a player’s impact on shot attempts and expected goals is greater than one standard deviation above the mean, I classify impact as positive. When it is worse than one standard deviation below the mean, I classify impact as negative. Everything between zero and one standard deviation in either direction is classified as neutral.

Finally, an opinion: I don’t trust people who point to charts and yell their opinions any more than I trust people who yell over highlight reels. Context is missing in each case; it’s important to understand the limitations of each approach and think our way through to reasonable conclusions.

Nick Schmaltz, Coyotes, C

Age: 27

Contract: $5.85 million cap hit, 10-team no-trade list, UFA 2026

Usage: First line at five-on-five, first PP

Production: 13 goals, 15 assists, 28 points in 42 games

Possession impact: Neutral

Arizona is looked at by opposing fans like a development team; the Coyotes play in a small rink, their cap hit is far higher than their actual payroll and last season’s Jakob Chychrun trade appeared to signal that their star players were there for the taking.

I think those days are done. The Coyotes are two points out of a wild-card spot and have a better points percentage than Nashville, the team they’re chasing. They’re getting good goaltending from Connor Ingram, a strong sophomore season from Matias Maccelli and their underlying numbers are a lot closer to average than their reputation as a salary-cap haven would imply.

What makes Schmaltz appealing then? His connection with Clayton Keller is part of it: Keller is on pace for his second straight 30-goal season, while Stathletes has shared that Schmaltz-to-Keller passes lead to shots on goal as often as any of the NHL’s elite duos. He’s a crafty playmaker on pace for his third straight 20-goal season and managed to create plenty of offence on a bottom-feeding team in the lead-up to this season.

Back-to-back goals in the first period for Nick Schmaltz  pic.twitter.com/8O47kV0o44

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 5, 2023

Schmaltz, like Mittelstadt, is a sub-50 percent centre in terms of faceoffs, which won’t thrill Bowness. He’s also another case of “If I were his team, I’d just keep him,” given the Coyotes’ shift in focus toward winning. Things could change if the Coyotes fall off after the All-Star break. Remember that Winnipeg got Paul Stastny from a 2018 Blues team that realized it was out of the race quite late in the year.

More than anything, it’s fun to consider what Winnipeg would be capable of with a player like him given its struggles since Scheifele went down.

Travis Konecny, Flyers, RW

Age: 26

Contract: $5.5 million cap hit, UFA 2025

Usage: First line at five-on-five, first PP, first PK

Production: 22 goals, 20 assists, 42 points in 47 games

Possession impact: Positive

Philadelphia has a playoff spot and the third best points percentage in its division: I can’t imagine the Flyers making a star like Konecny available from here. His availability depends on the team’s potential collapse — something he’s working actively to avoid, driving play and leading the Flyers with 42 points in 47 games.

Some sites list Konecny as a centre; he’s capable of playing the position but does so rarely enough and wins such a small percentage of his faceoffs that I think of him as a winger. Beyond that, there are a few criticisms; Konecny is a top player in all situations and a driving force behind an enormous part of Philadelphia’s success. He’s an absolute burner on the ice, using great speed to create chaos and plenty of scoring chances in the offensive zone. He stepped up with a 30-goal, point-per-game season without Sean Couturier last year and has been right up there with Couturier in terms of importance following Couturier’s impressive return. Couturier, by the way, has been a mentor to and an advocate for Konecny on the ice.

Travis Konecny from downtown!

The @NHLFlyers cut the deficit to two!#LetsGoFlyers | #NHLNShowcase pic.twitter.com/eaP4vCgAKx

— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) January 20, 2024

A Jets acquisition seems unlikely, given the Flyers’ team success and Konecny’s importance to it. He remains a popular trade target among fans who want a big-minutes scorer with a reasonable contract. He’s coming of age under John Tortorella in Philadelphia and the thought of an Ehlers-Perfetti-Konecny second line, with speed to burn on the wings and a smart centre making outlet passes, is as fun as it feels unlikely.

Jakob Chychrun, Senators, LHD

Age: 25

Contract: $4.6 million cap hit, 10-team no-trade list, UFA 2025

Usage: Top pair at five-on-five, second PP

Production: 7 goals, 20 assists, 27 points in 42 games

Possession impact: Positive

Chychrun was a major acquisition for the Senators last season, thought to help Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson and company turn Ottawa’s blue line into a tremendous strength. With young stars like Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk and Josh Norris on the team, plus veterans Claude Giroux, Vladimir Tarasenko and Travis Hamonic, the hope was that Ottawa had assembled a playoff team.

The Senators’ playoff hopes are all but done, with Ottawa in 29th place and showing no signs of a standings-climbing tear, so here we are.

Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports that multiple teams have kicked tires on Chychrun and Frank Seravalli writes that GM Steve Staois hasn’t said Chychrun is unavailable. My instinct is that this is more about a new GM ensuring that he’s open to exploring all possibilities than a sign that Chychrun is outright being shopped. A team that’s meant to make the playoffs but ends up with great odds to land the No. 1 pick is going to explore all kinds of options.

Nikolaj Ehlers sure is having a lot of “I’m him” moments this season.pic.twitter.com/bOcBFbIw9O

— Murat Ates (@WPGMurat) January 20, 2024

One could argue that Chabot and Sanderson do make Chychrun a luxury in Ottawa. He’s a left-handed defenceman who can play both sides, and despite what Ehlers did last week, Chychrun is a great skater whose mobility tends to contribute quite a bit to his team’s offence. It’s easy to imagine him playing behind Winnipeg’s top forwards, jumping into the play as a second wave of attack and fitting into the defensive system.

In the short term, Chychrun would give Winnipeg a defensive upgrade, pushing capable but imperfect defender Nate Schmidt out of the lineup. At 25 years old and with a $4.6 million cap hit for this year and next, it’s easy to think that Chychrun would fit into the team’s long-term plans.

I continue to believe the Jets are more interested in centre help than this kind of swing. But it’s still tempting to think of an ambitious, non-rental defenceman who would insulate the Jets should 2024 UFAs like Brenden Dillon and Dylan DeMelo or 2025 UFAs like Neal Pionk and Schmidt continue their careers elsewhere.

Mathieu Joseph, Senators, LW

Age: 26

Contract: $2.95 million cap hit, UFA 2026

Usage: Third line at five-on-five, second PP, first PK

Production: 7 goals, 14 assists, 21 points in 32 games

Possession impact: Neutral

Elliotte Friedman mentioned Mathieu Joseph as a player type that Winnipeg might enjoy in a recent episode of 32 Thoughts. Joseph, who Ottawa acquired in part for Nick Paul in 2022, is a left-shooting forward who plays either wing with plenty of competitiveness and forechecking energy. He’d be a luxury on Winnipeg’s fourth line or perhaps an upgrade on Mason Appleton playing on his off-hand side on the Jets’ third line during Appleton’s colder streaks.

He’s all kind of fun on the penalty kill.

Heck of an effort on the PK from Mathieu Joseph, so close to a shorty#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/wEPC7sIP9o

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) January 17, 2024

To me, the fit isn’t exactly ideal unless Joseph can help on the second line. At $2.95 million, he’d be an expensive third- or fourth-line player and it’s difficult to see Bowness moving away from Niederreiter and Appleton as Adam Lowry’s wingers on a healthy Jets lineup. Appleton is one of Bowness’ favourite players at five-on-five; the only Jets forwards who played more each game are Scheifele and Connor. Reduce your sample to the Jets’ last 10 games and Appleton passes Scheifele and Connor to lead the entire forward roster. He even passes Dylan Samberg and Schmidt, Winnipeg’s third pair.

I like Joseph as a player who could play in the Jets’ system if he were acquired. To me, the biggest upgrade, by far, would be a player for the team’s secondary scoring line — one who gives Bowness enough confidence to play Ehlers and Perfetti more than eighth- and ninth-most often.

Claude Giroux, Senators, C/RW

Age: 36

Contract: $6.5 million cap hit, full no-move clause, UFA 2025

Usage: First line at five-on-five, first PP, second PK

Production: 14 goals, 25 assists, 39 points in 42 games

Possession impact: Positive

Giroux is a faceoff wizard, a scorer, a playmaker, a power-play force, a penalty killer, a longtime captain and a Stanley Cup finalist. He’s also so thoroughly in control of his future, signing a three-year contract in Ottawa with full no-movement clause as he did in 2022, that he’s even beating Father Time.

But the Senators are a mess this season, unlikely to make the playoffs, meaning Giroux’s No. 1 desire — the Stanley Cup — depends on a trade or the patience to bet on a rebound next year. It’s true that Pierre Dorion promised Giroux upgrades and then picked up Chychrun and Tarasenko. It seems likely that the Senators organization would still prioritize a player of Giroux’s quality and status, although Dorion is no longer GM and it’s looking harder to bet on the Cup being a realistic pursuit in the third and final season of Giroux’s contract.

Does that creak the door open a little bit?

The last time Giroux was traded, it cost Florida top prospect Owen Tippett and a first-round pick. He went on to score eight points in 10 games while remaining a two-way force for Florida in the 2022 playoffs prior to signing in Ottawa. He hasn’t particularly slowed down, continues to score points and drive play and has one more year on his $6.5 million contract after this one. The Senators, if amenable to trade, would likely require an expensive package that helps reset their window for the Tkachuk generation — particularly if they eat some of Giroux’s cap hit, as it seems likely they’d need to do.

Who else but former Flyer Claude Giroux to tie this game up?  pic.twitter.com/I0PO5f6u7R

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 21, 2024

As a writer who does not make these consequential decisions, it’s easy to talk myself into Winnipeg giving up a top prospect plus a first-round pick sort of price for a two-year rental. I’m not sure if Giroux would sign off on a trade, if Brad Lambert or Nikita Chibrikov or whoever would make the Jets regret the move for years, or if it would be as effective for both teams as Jarome Iginla for Joe Nieuwendyk was for Calgary and Dallas.

I believe him to be “the goods,” though, and I think it’s fun to think about covering a team with Scheifele, Giroux and Lowry running things in the middle of the ice.
Murat Ates blends modern hockey analysis with engaging storytelling as a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Winnipeg. Murat regularly appears on Winnipeg Sports Talk and CJOB 680 in Winnipeg and on podcasts throughout Canada and the United States. Follow Murat on Twitter @WPGMurat