Jets Land Niederreiter in Deal with Predators

The Winnipeg Jets have begun their retooling ahead of the March 3, 2023 trade deadline.

On Saturday afternoon, the team announced it had added veteran forward Nino Niederreiter in a trade from the Nashville Predators.

A team that Winnipeg sees upwards of five times a calendar year, the Jets’ management and scouting staff clearly saw something in the 30-year-old Swiss product that they felt will help a struggling Winnipeg roster.

Once a shoo-in for a top-six Western Conference playoff spot – with some even considering the Jets in a battle with Dallas and Vegas for first place overall in the West – Winnipeg has slipped, as of late.

Entering a four-game road trip on coach’s orders to come out in a better place than it began, the team failed miserably, returning home with just one win in four games, and having been outscoring 9-4 in its three losses. That, paired with its brutal home showing against the visiting Colorado Avalanche on Friday night clearly seemed to be the nail in the coffin for general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and company.

Heading back to Nashville is a second-round draft pick in next year’s NHL Draft.

Coming to Winnipeg is what many would refer to as a consistent 20-goal scorer. Currently sitting at 18 goals on the season, it would either take a serious injury – knock on wood – or some absurdly drastic drop in production to not hit 20 goals on the season this year. In his 11 years in the NHL, Niederreiter has put up 20 goals on six other occasions – most recently, last year in Carolina.

He has 18 goals and 28 points in 56 games so far with Nashville – a team he signed with on a two-year, $8 million deal this offseason. Selected fifth overall as the highest-drafted Swiss player ever, Niederreiter has 199 goals and 396 points in 788 career regular season games for the New York Islanders, Minnesota Wild, Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators. He hit 25 goals and 57 points in 2016-17, while putting up 24 goals and 44 points last year in Carolina.

Around Full Press Hockey

NHL: Four Crucial Areas For Maple Leafs The Rest Of This Regular Season

NHL Rumors: NHL Rumors: New Jersey Devils Trade Targets

NHL: NHL All Star Game Thoughts and Possible Changes

NFL: What Eddie Robinson Told Doug Williams After He Made History 35 Years Ago

Full Press Bets: Early 2022 NFL MVP Odds: Bills’ Josh Allen Favored

PODCAST: Full Press Hockey Weekly Ep 45: Canucks, Islanders, and The Boston Bruins

An ever-present playoff player, Niederreiter has actually made the postseason in each of the past nine years. He has 15 goals and 30 points in 82 career playoff games.

Set to serve as more than just a ‘rental’ as his contract extends through the 2023-24 season, Niederreiter will be eligible to test unrestricted free agency during the summer of 2024.

The 6-foot-2, 218-pound winger will likely slot into the place left behind by rookie forward Cole Perfetti, who is expected to miss at least eight weeks with an upper-body injury sustained on the team’s most recent road trip. With scoring issues at a premium, the Jets’ offence will surely welcome their longtime Central Division foe into the picture for what will be a strong playoff push.

Niederreiter is actually riding a bit of a point-scoring streak at the moment, with four points in his last three games, all goals – including two in his final game as a Predator.

Currently sitting at 35-23-1, the Jets are still somehow second in their division (one point back of Dallas), but both the Wild (70 points) and Avalanche (69 points, three games in hand) are clawing back into the picture, and fast. The Predators (62 points) can also not be counted out, despite their current placement.

In order to allow Niederreiter onto the team’s roster, Cheveldayoff sent recent call-up Axel Jonsson-Fjallby back to the Manitoba Moose. With the new $4 million contract on the books, the Jets have roughly $5 million left to play with as deadline day nears. In as good of a standings placement as recent memory can recall, 2023 could be another year for a strong playoff push by the Jets, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see another trade in the coming days.