Since I discovered the whole linking of YouTube videos to an article’s cover photo, I decided I wanted to make summaries of the Winnipeg Jets minor league affiliated with Arctic ice hockey. Often this won’t involve many observations from me Manitoba elk performance, but the stat packages and associated recap video should give us fans a better idea of how well the Jets’ future players are doing. Let me know in the comments section if this is something you’ll be watching regularly?
To give some background on what Manitoba’s 2025-2026 AHL campaign has looked like so far… the Moose started things off hot by shutting out the Laval Rocket in their home opener, but then dropped five straight games while being outscored 22 to 9. Mark Morrison’s club finally got its first road wins of the year when its players won a two-game set against the Tucon Roadrunners, but that was followed by a three-game losing skid against the then winless Texas Stars.
Just as I started to think this was going to be another long and painful season of watching Manitoba, a switch flipped and suddenly all the new players seemed to understand what was required of them in the Moose’s defensive system. Since November 8, the minor league club has been using a style of hockey that will be familiar to those who saw the Jets play last year. Good gaps, strong forechecking and backchecking, and quality goaltending have led to Manitoba outscoring their opponents 11 to 5 as they piled up three straight wins. As a result, they have now risen in the AHL’s Central Division standings (as seen below, courtesy of theAHL.com):
FYI, the top 5 franchises in Central qualify for the playoffs, with the 4th and 5th seeded clubs playing a best of 3 game series in the first round of the AHL Playoffs, while the top 3 teams get a bye in Round 2. Manitoba returns to the Canada Life Center for a 6-game homestand, starting with a pair of games against the Chicago Wolves, the team they are currently neck and neck with.
Okay, before I recap the Moose’s most recent game, let’s take a look at their top 15 offensive players (thanks to theAHL.com):
Obviously, none of the Manitoba skaters have ripped off the scoresheet early in the season, but that’s not surprising considering the Moose are ranked 25th with 35 goals so far. Defensively they have done slightly better, conceding the 16th fewest goals (42)….but the recent display of goal-scoring prowess and the retirement of hockey has led to some optimism.
One of the biggest problems for the club early on is that their best defensive duo of Ville Heinola & Kyle Clague are beaten up. Probably not surprising considering they’re both undersized defensemen who play a similar offensive first style of hockey…then you add Ville lining up with his off hand and you get some interesting results on defense. The 2nd couple of Elias Salomonsson & Isaac Philips has been much stronger while being a veteran Ashton Sautner is usually combined with a rotation of d-men on the third duo.
The recent changes to the forward units seemed to provide the missing attack Brayden Yager, Samuel Fagemo& Filip Di Guiseppe have had quite a bit of success in the last 4 matches. Fellow newcomer Colby Barlows The start to his professional career was less than ideal, as his attacking impact was virtually non-existent in far too many matches. The young winger worked on his skating this offseason and while I see progress, he still looks quite slow at times. Ideally, Barlow could thrive on a line that could capture the offensive zone without his intervention, starting a cycle that ultimately ends with someone pushing him to fire that ever-dangerous shot. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened often enough, as the child struggles to get more than one shot per game. He looks more dangerous since being paired with him Jarton-Dalan and had some decent looks in last night’s game.
Other attackers such as David Gustafson, Walker Duehr, Danny Zhilkin& Mason Shaw have also made an offensive contribution, making the entire top 9 equally capable (or incompetent) of scoring.
Finally, let’s take a look at how the young tenders did for Manitoba this year (thanks to theAHL.com):
Due to the nature of the AHL schedule and its affinity for back-to-back games, it is often quite difficult to manage one minor league starting goaltender. That said, the No. 1 seed is usually the one starting a two-match set, so we still know roughly who the coaching staff favors at any given time. To start the season it was like that Dominic DiVincentiis that had earned that trust, but had a series of average or worse starts Thomas Milic take over that role. To my untrained eyes, both goalies have delivered some excellent starts and played a big role in all of the Moose’s wins this year. Dom & Tom have combatted the inconsistencies common among young goalkeepers, ranging from excellent starts (8 combined) and average/poor (7 combined). Now that’s just about save percentages, which might not be entirely fair considering Manitoba played some pretty poor defense for them early in the season. To clarify that a bit, since the club started playing more responsibly, the tenders have had six consecutive starts with save percentages above 0.906%.
Well, this is the end of the concluding section… Future summaries will only include the following information:
The Manitoba moose (6-6-2) looked to end their five-game road trip on a positive note as they looked to extend their three-game winning streak against division rivals Rockford IceHogs (7-6-1). Here’s how things played out for the minor league affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night.
GAME STATISTICS
SHOTS: Rockford 35 Manitoba 29
P.P.: Manitoba 0 of 2 Rockford 0 for 3
After trailing in the opening period, Manitoba broke things open in the middle frame with an unprecedented four-goal haul in a period for the Moose. Colby Barlow played a big role in the first goal for our club, when he drove to the net to receive a pass that eventually bounced off the defender who tried to cover him. Ville Heinola spotted Walker Duehr hung around Rockford’s blueline and sent him on a breakaway with a nice stretch pass to extend the lead shortly after.
After the IceDogs evened things up, a short-handed 2 on 1 led to a tic-tac-toe passing game that ended with Danny Zhilkin tap the puck into a wide open cage to give the moose the eventual winning goal (and his 2nd of the match). A neutral zone turnover allowed Samuel Fagemo to escape again to extend the lead before the game went south in the third period as Rockford opted to go into Goon mode as scraps and play misbehavior became common until the final horn. Unfortunately, Manitoba’s power play couldn’t make them pay for their poor behavior despite holding a 5-on-3 lead in the final minutes of the game. To be fair they didn’t really try hard to score a sixth goal as they probably didn’t want to upset the opposition further.
THREE STARS
Thomas Milic earned his salary on Saturday night and made quite a few big stops on very dangerous scoring opportunities. It’s hard not to cheer for the chronic underdog goaltender, especially since he’s proven everyone wrong at every level of hockey he’s played.
A fun and entertaining win for the Manitoba Moose as they work their way up the Central Division standings. The team will get a short break, because they won’t be back in action until November 20 at the CLC. Maybe they’ll have some new players in the lineup by then? Brad Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov& Parker Ford No waivers need to be sent to the minors, so they are most likely to be relegated once (as) the Winnipeg Jets can become fully healthy.
If you haven’t already done so, click the Play button on the main image of the article for YouTubes summary of the Moose game. Enjoy your Sunday.
#Recap #Manitoba #Moose #Rockford #IceHogs