WINNIPEG — The native son received a magical introduction, and the freshly signed star netted a hat trick. But on balance, the Winnipeg Jets didn’t do enough to earn a happy ending in their season-opener.
Jonathan Toews’ return to the NHL, in the city where he grew up, nearly dovetailed with a jaw-dropping comeback by his club versus the Dallas Stars. The Jets — fortunate to only trail 2-1 after 40 minutes — allowed three tallies in the first 3:23 of the final frame to fall four goals behind the visiting Stars on Thursday night at Canada Life Centre. However, by the time Kyle Connor — the guy who just inked a 12-year, $96-million contract extension — buried his third goal of the contest to pull his team within one score with 3:03 remaining on the clock, it truly felt like anything was possible.
That notion got a boost moments later when Winnipeg went on the power play thanks to a puck-over-glass boo-boo by Stars defenceman Thomas Harley. When Toews joined the power play as a sixth attacker with goalie Connor Hellebuyck pulled, you were just waiting for something to happen that might shake the whole of Manitoba.
The Stars squeaked it out, though, and after downing the Jets 4-2 in the second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Dallas edged Winnipeg 5-4 in the contest that kicked off a new campaign for both clubs.
“Certainly you have to give Dallas credit, but for 50 minutes we were not a very good hockey team,” said Jets coach Scott Arniel. “Our structure and detail in all three areas wasn’t very good. They’re too good of a hockey team to make those kinds of mistakes.”
It must have felt a little strange for Arniel to give that glum assessment of his team’s showing. After all, Toews’ exhilarating pre-game introduction — and it was absolutely chill-inducing to hear the crowd drown out the public address announcer when Toews glided onto the ice — wasn’t the only bit of pageantry featured on the night. Winnipeg also hung a banner for winning the first Presidents’ Trophy in franchise history last year, a testament to a 116-point showing that was built largely on devotion to structure and a willingness to out-battle the opponent.
It’s fair to say the Jets did not pick up where they left off in either regard.
Even if you want to cut the club some slack — it is, after all, playing without top-four defenceman Dylan Samberg, top-six winger Cole Perfetti and captain Adam Lowry — there’s no question the Jets fell way short of their own expectations.
“We have capable people who are out there and playing,” Arniel said when asked about the impact of the missing, injured bodies. “If we’re better with our structure and our details, we’re not giving up those looks. They scored three goals off entries. That’s not us. We don’t give up those plays with a guy who is dead center in the middle of the ice, getting chances. We have to work on that. Again, it was totally unexpected, and at the end of the day, we’ll look at it. There are some areas we certainly need to clean up.”
The way Arniel spoke about his entire club was similar to the way Toews talked about his own game. Playing regular-season hockey for the first time since April 13, 2023, Toews — who struggled with long COVID and chronic inflammatory response syndrome — obviously knew it would be tough to make a seamless return to the best league in the world.
“You know, close, but a lot of room for improvement, a lot of little things I can do better,” he said. “Definitely trying to start the play with the puck off the face-offs; didn’t really get that going for my line out there (Toews lost eight of the 15 draws he took). But other than that, there were some situations where the three of us (Toews played with Nikita Chibrikov and Gustav Nyquist) created and had some chances, even on the power play as well. I was pretty close to making things happen, getting us on the board, so I think there are some positives I’m excited about. (I’ll) just keep trying to build on it.”
Toews, who saw 18:19 of ice time, did get a great look in the second frame when Chibrikov sent him streaking in over the right side of the blueline. Toews wired the puck toward goalie Jake Oettinger, but wound up missing the mark in a moment where the crowd was dreaming of that first tally in a Jets uniform.
“I thought I had high, far side, and I think the puck just stood up on me a little bit, and I ended up just riming it around the glass,” he said. “It was a tough one to pass up and miss the net on that one.”
Even without the signature moment that a goal or assist would have provided, Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan saw shades of the old Toews in the player wearing No. 19 in blue on this night.
“I’ve watched him and, you know, still a big body, strong on pucks, and you can see just some of his headiness (is there),” Gulutzan said. “And for a guy who hasn’t played for a while, boy, he’s a great player. He still looks good.”
It’s fair to say that was the case, and then some, when it came to Connor. Winnipeg’s top sniper evened the game 1-1 with a first-period strike, finding the back of the net for an incredible eighth consecutive season-opening game.
And he sure wasn’t done there.
After Morgan Barron scored a short-handed beauty of his own just before the midway mark of the third to breathe a little life into the building, Connor cut Dallas’ lead to two goals with a shorty of his own. With the crowd now officially on tilt, Connor got his third of the night when Dallas defenceman Miro Heiskanen lost his footing, giving No. 81 all the room he needed in the slot to rip one past Oettinger on the blocker side.
It was the kind of performance that demonstrated why Winnipeg was only too happy to hand this guy the richest contract in franchise history.
“It doesn’t take much for him to find holes, to get that shot off,” Arniel said. “Even the first one (where Connor had a little bobble), it looked like he was running out of room, but he gets it back on his stick and puts it under the bar. He’s just a goal-scorer. That’s what he does. When he gets time, he gets space, he gets one-on-one with the goalie, 90 per cent of the time it’s in the net.”
In truth, no matter what Connor or anybody else did on this night, the story was always going to be Toews taking the ice again in a place where he’s already so revered. With the first-game jitters gone and at least one layer of rust removed, Toews can keep progressing on his comeback journey when the Los Angeles Kings visit on Saturday.
“I think it was just really exciting before the game,” he said. “But then once you get your legs under you, you just go out there and play. As the game went on, you just try not to think about it too much and just enjoy it. You enjoy it when you play your best, and I just tried to find a way to do that.”
Bank on Toews — and his entire team — trying to be a little bit better next time out.
