Opening night for the Winnipeg Jets is two and a half weeks away.
There is reason to believe the team will have extensions in place by then with Kyle Connor and captain Adam Lowry.
In Edmonton, there is hand-wringing over Connor McDavid’s “indifferent” responses to re-upping long-term with the Oilers.
The concern is real in Minnesota, if the reports are true that Kirill Kaprizov and his agent rejected an eight-year deal for $16 million per.
But you don’t get that same sense in Winnipeg about how things will eventually play out between Connor and the Jets.
And I also find it very interesting that GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is very quick to add Lowry’s name to the conversation when the talk gets around to contract extensions.
Here are some reasons why Winnipeg hockey fans should be optimistic that an agreement will be reached before the curtain goes up on the Jets’ 15th season Oct. 9 versus Dallas.
Connor is about as low-maintenance a superstar as there can be. He wants to win. So does this organization, and they have not been shy about their Stanley Cup aspirations — even if they begin the season as the ninth choice on most popular sports betting sites.
I’m not sure the guy they call “KC” can find a better gig than the one he has going with the Jets, as head coach Scott Arniel pointed out last week — playing on one of the league’s best lines, the centrepiece of the NHL’s top-producing power play, and getting some time on the penalty kill as well.
Cheveldayoff says the Jets are all about negotiating “fair deals.” If TSN’s Darren Dreger is correct in his analysis, $12 million is the magic number to cross the Ts and dot the Is on this transaction. That represents almost a 60 per cent increase from Connor’s previous deal of $7.1 million per season.
This could almost be too idealistic, but what if Chevy is aiming for a repeat of two years ago when the Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck deals were announced, about 48 hours in advance of the season opener in Calgary?
Wouldn’t it be something if history were re-visited with Connor and Lowry this fall?
