How worried should the Winnipeg Jets be?

Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishRed Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic’s hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox. Breaking news: Just as we were about to hit send, we found out Mike Sullivan is parting ways with the Penguins. He now moves to the top of the list for teams with vacancies, especially the Rangers. More details here.Otherwise, good morning! While you were sleeping, the Kings apparently were too. They blew a 3-1 lead in the third period, and the Oilers won in overtime to tie the series. We’re into Day 10 of the playoffs, and nobody’s out yet. Only three teams are even facing elimination. The first round is quite possibly the single best time to be a hockey fan, and it looks like nobody’s interested in heading home early.But that doesn’t mean we can’t panic about anyone, because …More Like Lose-ipeg ✈️I am now worried about the Winnipeg JetsThey say you’re never truly in trouble in a playoff series until you’ve lost at home. They’re wrong. The Jets are in big trouble.The playoffs’ top seed arrived in St. Louis with a 2-0 series lead and looking every bit like the Cup favorite so many of us picked them to be. Two games later, the series is tied and Connor Hellebuyck may be broken.Hellebuyck, who’s both the reigning Vezina Trophy winner as the league’s best goalie and a near-lock to take home this year’s award when it’s announced, had been fine in the first two games. It wasn’t ideal, but it was enough to keep those “Playoff Hellebuyck” narratives from taking hold. After he was shelled in Game 3, though, the warning light on the dashboard was blinking. When it happened again yesterday afternoon, it felt like we reached five-alarm territory.Read more: Jesse Granger and Murat Ates break down film on Hellebuyck’s playoff struggles.So yeah, big trouble. But insurmountable trouble? No. I don’t think so. The Jets now find themselves in a best-of-three where they have home-ice advantage. They’re still the favorite.But they’re on the ropes, and I’m worried. And as someone who made them my pick both for the Cup and the team I encouraged everyone to bandwagon, I wanted some reassurance. So I reached out to Murat, our Jets beat writer, with a simple request: Please reassure me that the Jets can still win this series.Murat says: It’s not my job to regulate your feelings, Sean.But you asked me for Jets-related reassurance and that I can provide. It’s not that I believe a Jets team that has not followed a playoff loss with a playoff win since 2019 — unless you count the 2020 qualification round, which I don’t — is a lock to beat the Blues. That’s obviously impossible to promise. What I can point to is that a series isn’t over until the home team loses. Not only do the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets have home ice advantage in the remaining best-of-three, they had the NHL’s second-best home record at 30-7-4 this year (and beat the Blues twice at Canada Life Centre last week). It’s also worth noting the Jets have carried the flow of play at five-on-five in three out of four games and maintain a slight lead overall. That wasn’t remotely the case against Vegas in 2023 or Colorado last year.The problems are familiar in that Hellebuyck is getting shelled and Winnipeg is getting beaten in the low slot, but this time, Winnipeg is creating scoring chances, too. Gabriel Vilardi is a potential Game 5 returnee, breathing life into the power play, and it was only a week ago that the Jets had all kinds of answers for the Blues at even strength. They’re still in this series, even after getting smoked 12-3 in two games in St. Louis.Sean feels: Slightly better. But only slightly.One Win Away 🔥

(David Kirouac / Imagn Images)Caps silence hot Montreal crowdOne fun subplot of the first round has been the Habs/Caps series unexpectedly becoming the nastiest matchup of them all, featuring a bench fight, two goalie injuries and a red-hot Montreal crowd for Games 3 and 4. Everyone wants to see this one go seven.Well, not everyone, because apparently the Capitals would like to get this over with. They’ll have that opportunity tomorrow, thanks to last night’s 5-2 win. Two of those goals were empty-netters, so it was closer than it sounds. But the Caps, to their credit, did what favorites are supposed to do on the road: survive the storm, take control and escape with a win.Much to the chagrin of Montreal fans, the main character last night was Tom Wilson, who threw a game-changing hit on Alexandre Carrier that led directly to the tying goal.
Tom Wilson’s bone-crunching hit on Montreal’s Alexandre Carrier was not whistled, leading to Washington’s game-tying goal in the Capitals’ Game 4 win.
Should a penalty have been called?
🎥 @Sportsnetpic.twitter.com/Djlf1HpuIr
— The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) April 28, 2025That clip isn’t going quite as viral as Wilson’s last (because that one was art), but it’s far more important. It could end up deciding the series.Coast to Coast🏒 Pierre LeBrun on the best moment of the playoffs so far: Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog returning to the lineup and scoring his first goal in three years.🥅 Michael Russo on whether this Wild team is actually different.😬 Jonas Siegel on the Maple Leafs, a commanding series lead and those old demons.❓ Which year of playoff action produces the best roster of OT heroes?👁️‍🗨️ If you missed it, the top pick in the NFL Draft was Cam Ward. No, not that Cam Ward. OR WAS IT?What to WatchWait, only two games tonight? I don’t love that. It’s a scheduling quirk, sure, but it’s also a reminder that we’re coming up to the end of the first round’s four-games-a-night firehose. The good news is the two games we’re getting are from the two best series so far.📺 Lightning @ Panthers7 p.m. ET on ESPN / SNEvery year, there seems to be one series that refuses to be figured out. That’s the Battle of Florida this year, a fantastic matchup that had most of our in-house experts picking the Lightning. Oops — the Panthers dominated the first two games in Tampa, posting a blowout win in Game 1 and following with a low-scoring shutout in Game 2. They were unstoppable heading back to home ice. But oops again, the Lightning rolled in Game 3, and now we’ve got ourselves a series. Unless we don’t.The big talk over the last few games has been a pair of five-minute interference majors, one to Tampa’s Brandon Hagel in Game 2 and one to Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk in Game 3. The former earned Hagel a one-game suspension; the latter didn’t get a response from the Department of Player Safety. (If you’re not sure why some penalties are minors and others are majors, check out my guide from a few years ago.)It’s all led to even more bad blood than we already had between these two rivals, as well as some postgame chirping between the coaches. Some free advice for tonight: Keep your head up out there. Even if you don’t have the puck.📺 Avalanche @ Stars9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN / SN / SN360This is our first Game 5 of the round, and it feels like these teams have been trading haymakers for weeks. We’ve already had two overtimes, the Gabriel Landeskog comeback, a blowout, a shutout and plenty of will-he-or-won’t-he drama around injured Dallas blueliner Miro Heiskanen. Could he return tonight? We’ll see.What we haven’t had yet: the return of Jason Robertson, who we’re told won’t be available yet but is making progress. We also haven’t seen much from Mikko Rantanen or Martin Necas, who are both stuck on a single assist for the series after being traded for each other during the season.💡 Trivia time: Apart from Rantanen and Necas, which players traded during the season had the most regular-season points among players in the playoffs?The full NHL playoff schedule is here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo.No Dumb Questions

Bruce Bennett / Getty ImagesWe believe that in hockey, as in life, there are no dumb questions. So if you have something you’ve always wondered about the sport, ask away by emailing us at redlight@theathletic.com.Who gets credit for a goal if a team scores directly into its own net?Welcome to No Dumb Questions, a feature where we’ll walk you through anything you’ve always wanted to know about hockey but have been afraid to ask. Maybe it’s a newbie question. Maybe it’s just something strange. Just remember, it’s not dumb.For example, here’s one that comes up way more often than you might think. We all know teams will occasionally score into their own net by accident. And most of us know when that happens, the goal is credited to the last player on the other team to touch the puck. But what if there was no last player? What if a team puts the puck directly into their own net without anyone on the other team even touching it?If you’ve ever wondered, you’re not alone. And lucky for us, it’s actually happened. For example, here are the Flames doing exactly that in 2008.So, who gets credit? The center who took the faceoff. In the case above, Leafs center (and future Flame) Matt Stajan “scored” the goal on a shift in which he never touched the puck.Trivia Answer: Mikael Granlund

(Brian Bradshaw Sevald / Imagn Images)Rantanen and Necas both had over 80 points. The next leading scorer among traded players was J.T. Miller, with 70 points, but he and the Rangers aren’t in the playoffs. That means our answer is another player from the Dallas/Colorado series: Stars forward Mikael Granlund, who had 66 points while going from San Jose to Dallas ahead of the deadline.📫 Love Red Light? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.Streaming links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.(Top photo: Jeff Le / Imagn Images)