Jets should consider reuniting with hometown goaltender Chris Driedger amid Crease Crisis – The Hockey Writers Winnipeg Jets Latest News, Analysis & More

The Winnipeg Jets are currently having a wrinkle crisis, and reuniting with a Winnipegger could be a good stopgap to lessen its severity.

Chris Driedger leaves KHL; Could Jets explore Reunion?

That Winnipegger is Chris Driedger, who played this season for Traktor Chelyabinsk of the Kontinental Hockey League but came to an agreement with the club on Sunday to terminate his contract.

Driedger was with the Jets last season when they acquired the now 31-year-old from the Florida Panthers at the 2025 Trade Deadline in March to give them more depth in case of an injury to Connor Hellebuyck or Eric Comrie. He ultimately never played a game for the Jets, but started five for the Manitoba Moose before signing with Traktor this offseason.

A reunion with Driedger – perhaps on a one-year, two-way contract – would bring an experienced netminder into the room to bolster a club whose goaltending has never been as shallow as it is now in the last decade. Reigning back-to-back Vezina and Hart Memorial Trophy winner Hellebuyck is out four to six weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery on Saturday, a worst-case scenario to say the least.

Driedger went 8-9-2 with a 3.05 goals against average (GAA) and a .897 save percentage (SV%) with Traktor this season. Although injuries have derailed his NHL career, the 2012 draft pick has good big-league numbers: a 31-24-5 record, 2.45 GAA, .917 SV% and five shutouts in 67 games between the Ottawa Senators, Panthers and Seattle Kraken.

Comrie/Milic Tandem A big question mark

With all due respect to Comrie, who has been thrust into the starter role until Hellebuyck returns sometime after Christmas, he is not an elite goaltender. While he has served Hellebuyck well since returning to the club last season, performing well in the first two starts of his temporary number one era, he may not be up to the task of stealing games for a club that has been very inconsistent thus far.

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The one time he was named “the guy” — in 2022-23 with the Buffalo Sabers in the first season of a two-year contract — things went so poorly that the team had to deviate from that plan in mid-November.

Likewise, with all due respect to Thomas Milic, he has never played an NHL regular season game. The 22-year-old got off to a good start with the Moose this season (5-2-2, 2.14 GAA, .921 SV% and a shutout) before being called up in the wake of Hellebuyck’s injury to serve as a backup, but has only just gotten back on track after a very rough sophomore season from 2024-25, where he struggled mightily in the American Hockey League (5-12-3, 3.44). GAA, 0.877 SV%).

He’s on the Jets’ bench — and will have to make some starts at some point — out of necessity, not necessarily because he’s ready yet.

Jets cannot afford the December crisis

The Jets cannot afford to lose the majority of the 15 to 20 games on their calendar due to Hellebuyck’s injury timeline. They are currently just 12-9-0 and out of the playoffs, fifth in the Central Division and a point out of the Western Conference’s second wild-card spot as the all-important American Thanksgiving threshold approaches.

Teams not in the postseason picture on US Turkey Day only qualify for the big dance about 25 percent of the time. The Jets’ sense of urgency going forward will need to be much greater than last season, when the team had already built up a huge points total by that date (they were 18-5-0 and first in the Central and Western Conferences), which would have even protected them from an extended slump.

The Jets have a number of off-the-line issues that have led to their mediocre current seeding – poor five-on-five play, stuttering special teams, lack of secondary scoring and an inconsistent defensive structure among them – so signing Driedger wouldn’t be a silver bullet by any means. However, they must do everything they can to improve their short-term prospects; Bringing in an experienced goalkeeper could do just that and keep them afloat so their post-Presidents’ Trophy campaign doesn’t fizzle out.