The Winnipeg Jets won't be on the sidelines because they are not being talked to, it's by choice and design of management and ownership. As a fan of the team, you probably sit in one of two camps, patient and trusting of the 'process' or irritated and anxious about the lack of effort to make even the most obvious moves to improve.

In Winnipeg it would appear to me that it's a 60/40 split on the position with the patient side being the majority.

I think the point that Jets fans should consider though is that management and ownership probably feel they have the team right where they want now to start taking steps forward, albeit with a few hurdles ahead of them. Two of those hurdles would be Trouba's status/contract and Scheifele's contract.

The danger or risk with current time line of the 'process' is that locking up and extending current RFA while migrating to a youth movement means that the team has seen the evidence that they can have success with this group and will in the future. I'd like to see that evidence. I think many in Edmonton would give fair warning to any fan betting on talented draft picks guaranteeing success.

The Jets do have a different mix of players than the Oilers and have been able to attract some notable UFA talent if you consider Stafford and Jokinen notable, Perreault was a big score. However the biggest problem has been filling in the holes, the accessory pieces, the role players for depth, not to mention the defence challenges.

Does that change today? Does anyone believe that Chevy would do something so big at the draft that he could re-shape his team? Not only do I think he won't nor has planned to, I believe he would be happy to sit and see what comes his way from GMs far more desperate with cap challenges and ownership issues.

If something were to happen it would likely revolve around the 22nd pick in the first round and that makes sense. What that might be is based around lots of speculation and the wish list for Jets fans is long. Let's consider some scenarios

1. If the Jets player is there, they will use the pick and draft that player
2. If the player is gone they may opt to trade down, possibly into the second round while getting back something else.
3. Their might be a trade of that pick for a player under contract
4. A bigger deal happens with that pick being a part of the deal.

That covers the 4 most probable options but if you were to rank them and apply a likelihood to them I'd go like this-:

1. 60%
2. 25%
3. 13%
4. 2%

The simple point to this long-winded explanation is the Jets don't really need to do anything right now unless it favours them, and by that I mean another team is a bit desperate and willing to overpay/compensate. There are some simple changes even within the organization that could in all probability take the Jets from a top 5 lottery team to a bubble playoff team.

In my estimation those are the moves that need to be made instead of looking for fixes or random trades because of market conditions. Remember the 60/40 split I mentioned above, within that 40 group is the same frustration about action from within organization as there are to external moves to improve team. It's a double header for those folks. It's also time that the team and management addressed the glaring and obvious issues instead of of developing their way out of it over time.

Draft day is fun, there's lots of rumours and speculation going on and as a hockey fan we should all relish in it.

Jets will draft Laine at #2 and then we'll see the rodeo start with the teams after.

Have fun.

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