When the Winnipeg Jets lost eleven games in a row midway through the season, it seemed certain that they would not make the playoffs.
It took a lot longer than many would have thought, but indeed the 2025-26 Jets will not play for the Stanley Cup, falling to the Golden Knights 6-2 in Vegas Monday night to meet the mathematical end of their hopes.
They were technically eliminated when the Los Angeles Kings beat the Seattle Kraken 5-3, a game that went final during the third period of this game but the loss to Vegas would have done the job anyway.
The first period came and went with no goals being scored. Vegas outshot the Jets 10-3 as they failed on one power play attempt and had another that was split in half by the first intermission.
It was fitting that the second period began with a power play because the middle frame was all about penalties; only 8:12 of the second was played at 5-on-5.
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Winnipeg killed off the overlapping penalty before earning their first power play look of the game 6:21 into the period. But instead of generating some momentum, the Jets allowed the opening goal of the game.
Mark Scheifele had the puck in the corner in the Vegas zone but his attempt to chip the puck back to the point grazed off an official, allowing Jack Eichel to pick it up and skate down the ice on a 2-on-1 with Mark Stone.
Eichel held it as long as he could before sliding a pass across for a one-timer from Stone that barely squeezed through the legs of Connor Hellebuyck before trickling over the line.
At the 9:06 mark, Winnipeg got another power play but it proved to be unsuccessful as well.
A couple minutes later, Nikita Chibrikov, playing in his first NHL game since November, got under the skin of some Vegas players, drawing a cross-check from Brayden McNabb and earning Ivan Barbashev a roughing call. Chibrikov also picked up a minor penalty despite replays showing that he did not engage with any Golden Knights after the whistle.
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Just before that power play ran out, Nino Niederreiter accidentally hit Noah Hanifin in the neck with his stick.
But before that Vegas power play expired, Kyle Connor was hooked trying to chase down a loose puck in the Vegas end.
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Winnipeg would once again not be able to take advantage, and not long after that penalty expired, Jonathan Toews went to the box for hooking.
Vegas put forth the best power play of the period after that penalty, firing six shots on goal. They did not score but just nine seconds after Toews got out of the box, they were able to break through and double their lead.
Toews had just gotten back into the Winnipeg end as Rasmus Andersson got the puck back to Hanifin at the point. He sent a shot toward the goal that was deflected en route by Reilly Smith, beating Hellebuyck to make it 2-0 with 1:06 to go in the period.
Shots in the second favoured Vegas by a margin of 16-10.
The Golden Knights made it 3-0 just 31 seconds into the third thanks to slick setup by Eichel.
He got the puck below the goal line in the Winnipeg end and as he skated around the net, drawing the attention of several Jets defenders and Hellebuyck, he flicked a behind-the-back backhand pass to Barbashev for a back-door tap-in.
Moments later, Winnipeg found themselves on their fifth power play of the night and they were finally able to convert.
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Scheifele got the puck back to the point for Colin Miller, playing in his first game in over three months. Miller then sent a hard pass to the side of the crease that Gabriel Vilardi redirected past Carter Hart for his 30th of the season.
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With an assist on the play, Scheifele became the first Jet in the 2.0 era to amass 100 points in a season. The last player in the original iteration of the Jets to eclipse the century mark was Teemu Selanne in his historic rookie campaign, when he had a whopping 132 points in 1992-93.
But Vegas was not interested in Jets’ milestones, restoring their three-goal lead just 1:13 later when Andersson skated into the Winnipeg zone, collected a cross-ice pass from Stone and ripped a shot over the shoulder of Hellebuyck.
Scheifele was not done with the milestones, however. 64 seconds after the Andersson goal, he forced a turnover in the Vegas end, leading to a shot from Connor in the slot that created a massive rebound that Scheifele buried for his 101st point of the season.
That set a new franchise high, passing the 100 that Marian Hossa put up in 2006-07 in the lone season that the Atlanta Thrashers qualified for the postseason.
The assist for Connor also gave him 90 points for the season.
But mere moments after Scheifele scored, he was given a double-minor for high-sticking and Vegas cashed in when Pavel Dorofeyev buried a wrister from the faceoff dot past Hellebuyck.
They doubled down with five seconds to go in the second part of the double-minor when Eichel buried a loose puck on a broken play for his first power play goal of the season.
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By the time the night was through, Vegas went 2-for-7 on the power paly while Winnipeg went 1-for-5.
The Golden Knights outshot Winnipeg 12-10 in the third and 38-23 for the game as Hellebuyck made 32 saves in defeat.
The Jets have become just the fifth team since the President’s Trophy was first handed out in 1986 to finish first in the league standings one year then miss the playoffs the following season.
If there is any silver lining, the Jets will enter Tuesday’s game in Utah with the sixth-best odds of winning the draft lottery.