Analysing Jets attendance, Cole Perfetti’s position and Nikolaj Ehlers’ minutes: Mailbag, part 2

The best team in the NHL is playing to some of the smallest crowds.

This is a topic I don’t tend to weigh in on often, but one of this month’s most popular mailbag questions demanded some thought.

Meanwhile, Nikolaj Ehlers is lighting it up again but his Jets future is in doubt and fans wonder whether Cole Perfetti is destined for a career at wing — could he be a solution down the middle?

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and length.

Attendance is looking much stronger this year as compared to last. Despite this there have been no sellouts and the building was not full for the home opener as well as a visit from Sidney Crosby. A year on from the organization waking up to their new reality in terms of ticket sales, how would you evaluate their performance in bringing fans back into the building and what further steps could you see taken to bring the attendance back to full sellout levels? — Zach B.

This is a timely question, Zach, even after the Jets sold out their game against Toronto last week.

Jets attendance has bounced back a little bit since Mark Chipman sounded the alarm on TSN and at The Athletic last season. But is that good? Is it enough?

My overall impression is meaningfully changing the momentum of public opinion in any field is a challenging feat to manage. There are so many factors that lead into any purchasing decision and some of them are beyond a team’s control. For that reason, an increase in season seat sales from 9,500 to approximately 10,000 seems like a disproportionately large win to me. The Jets have managed to stop a boulder from continuing its roll downhill.

How have they done it?

As I wrote last season, I think it was important True North acknowledged it had a problem. Fans had reported poor customer service experiences for years during the sellout streak; it seemed clear Winnipeg didn’t do enough to retain fans during that time. Mark Chipman’s acknowledgment of this fact was an important first step. There needs to be some amount of overlap between the story a fan base and an ownership group tells itself about their team.

I think it’s also important that the Jets are a good hockey team. Playoffs blowout aside, we have a large sample of winning play: the fourth-best record during the season last year and the best one in the NHL right now. I love process-based discussion — and think it’s fair to criticize elements of a winning team — but the Jets have won 62 games from the start of last season to now. They’re tied with the New York Rangers for most in the league in that time frame, so at least part of the bounce-back could be connected to the quality of on-ice product.

No Jets home game has seen its attendance dip below 12,000 for the first five games, while four out of Winnipeg’s first five games fell below that mark last year.

It’s also worth noting the Jets didn’t register their first sellout until December 30 against Minnesota last season but pulled it off against Toronto last week. Now, could that have more to do with the Maple Leafs’ enormous Canada-wide fanbase? Of course. You have to go back to December 2021 to find the last time a Maple Leafs at Jets game did not sell out. Pandemic fears and economic insecurity were hitting the league as a whole back then.

But Winnipeg’s ticket-selling struggle is unique to Winnipeg now.

The NHL set an all-time attendance record last season (including outdoor games and off-site venues) and has played to an average of 96 percent attendance overall this season. Winnipeg’s improvement to 13,977 represents 92 percent capacity — the 21st highest percentage in the league — while playing in the smallest building in the league. If you use raw numbers, only Utah and San Jose have lower average attendance figures than Winnipeg does this season.

I don’t think ticket-buying decisions are ever about just one thing, though.

The Jets have also invested in their gameday experience over the past two years. I’d be curious to know how fans feel about the improvements to Canada Life Centre: improved food and beverage options, shorter lines, better sound, an in-house band and some unique lounge areas within the building. Whether you have season seats or you go every once in a while, do you feel like True North has improved your experience as a guest in their home?

As part of my homework for your question, I reached out to True North to ask about initiatives they run for season-ticket holders. Several fans had already messaged me about skating with Jets players at Canada Life Centre. It’s rare for fans to email or DM me about initiatives the Jets run for them, and I think the opportunity to connect directly with Jets players really struck a chord.

True North sent me a list of initiatives that connect players to fans:

• The aforementioned skate with players at Canada Life Centre
• A few “hot stove” lunches each season, where select season seat members can watch a practice, have lunch in the Scotiabank Lounge and listen to Sara Orlesky have a hot stove with players and coaches
• A photo day where about 3,500 season seat members come down and get their picture taken with the players
• Players delivered mini fridges to season seat members at the beginning of the season (please share your story with me if one of them was you!)
• After almost every game, a “Jersey Off Your Back” meet-and-greet with a season seat member and an individual player

I’m highlighting these initiatives in part because I didn’t know about all of them and in part because I think the decision to buy tickets is an intersection of economics, perceived joy levels, and connection to the team — its players, personnel, and in a broader sense its story.

An influential person in Winnipeg recently told me there is a connection between media coverage and season ticket sales. Part of my job as a reporter is to connect you to players on the days you can’t watch them. This connection is forged through storytelling, deep dives and analysis, like our feature on Scott Arniel’s analytics summit, or our Connor Hellebuyck origin story that combined detailed analysis with insight into Hellebuyck’s childhood.

Stories like that take hard work and collaboration between myself, Winnipeg’s PR staff and, most importantly, the players. Opening up about one’s childhood is not an ordinary thing — for public consumption at that — so it takes work to do the right research, ask the right questions, and ideally get buy-in from players and PR staff so the story that lands in front of you is one that leaves you feeling more connected to your team.

As for what the Jets should do next, part of the answer depends on what their data is telling them. Season ticket memberships are one data point at one end of the sales funnel. How many minipack holders are buying season tickets? How many individual game attendees are considering minipacks? How many brand-new visitors does Canada Life Centre see each year? The economic health of a hockey team is a holistic thing. I’m intrigued by the early-season boost in sales but the Jets’ attendance figures continue to show a lot of room for growth.

What would it take for you to buy tickets — or to increase the amount you already spend?

How can the Jets have any hope to keep Ehlers on the team if they’re going to play him career-low minutes? Hasn’t the org been preaching how important to the team he is? What exactly is going on with the Ehlers front right now? — Lyndon R.

Lyndon was right to refer to Ehlers’ minutes as a career low when asking this question, but things have changed a bit.

Ehlers’ average ice time has increased from 14:43 through five games to 15:59 after 11 games played, which is the seventh-highest out of Ehlers’ 10 seasons to date. He’s rewarded them for that increase with a hat trick against Columbus and yet another elite points-per-minute rate. The biggest drop in Ehlers’ minutes has occurred at five-on-five, where he’s played the second-fewest minutes of his career. He’s eighth among 12 regularly-used Jets forwards, which helps cancel out his increase in power-play time.

I think there are three factors to keep our eyes on.

The first is that he’s playing way more often on the road than at home. This makes sense if you see the game through Arniel’s line-matching lens: At home, where Arniel has the last change, his priorities are getting Adam Lowry’s line out against the big guns and Scheifele’s line against targeted opposition as often as possible. Ehlers’ line, with Cole Perfetti and Vladislav Namestnikov, is a sort of “secondary scoring” line and it can get lost in the shuffle. On the road, Arniel doesn’t have last change; it seems he might be rolling lines more than fighting for his matchups.

The second is that it’s been only 11 games, so Ehlers’ line’s cold start could have cost them early. His offensive output has tracked upward with his minutes.

And the third comes from Ehlers himself, to Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun.

“I’ve never, ever said I wanted to play 20 minutes,” Ehlers told Billeck. “I’m fine with 16. It’s when it gets down to 11 and 12, that pisses me off. And I said that many times. It’s not a secret. When it gets lower, that’s when it’s frustrating because I can’t get into the games. I’ve played in this league long enough and played well enough to deserve more.”

Ehlers’ minutes did fall as low as 12:57 against Pittsburgh but he’s up to the aforementioned 15:59 this season. Separately from this conversation, I understand Ehlers did voice frustration with his ice time last season — privately, mind you.

All of that said: If he’s sincere about wanting 16 minutes, he’s right on track. He’s received the seventh-most shifts among Jets forwards and is known for taking short shifts.

It’s the long game that seems worthy of concern. Winnipeg has explored trading Ehlers at various points in the past without feeling satisfied with the offers made for him. His increased power-play time may lead to the type of UFA payday Winnipeg is unwilling to pursue with an extension for Kyle Connor coming up next. And Ehlers will have his own feelings about his future, what kind of role he wants to play and where he wants to spend his time.

The Athletic’s Chris Johnston recently listed Ehlers on an early list of 2024-25 trade candidates. His reasoning, which I agree with, is that Ehlers’ situation is one to watch because of the degree of uncertainty. He could be a Jets self-rental, an 11th hour extension or a trade piece, and all of those options are reasonable to explore.

Cole Perfetti was a center all the way through junior hockey. I remember when we drafted him, my immediate thought was, “We finally got our No. 2 center of the future,” but he’s never really stuck at C, and I’m just curious as to why that is. Is it literally just because he’s short? — Benny W.

Perfetti played centre growing up and starred for Saginaw in that position en route to being chosen 10th overall in 2020. He also played a lot of centre for Manitoba during his AHL tenure, along with a little bit of left wing. If he were to emerge as a dependable second-line centre option for Winnipeg, it would help the next generation of Jets build behind Scheifele and Lowry.

Perfetti hasn’t played a whole lot of centre in the NHL, though, like you point out. He made his NHL debut on a team with Scheifele and PL Dubois down the middle. Back in 2021-22, the only room in Winnipeg’s top six was at wing, so that’s where Perfetti played; almost 70 percent of his minutes were spent opposite Kyle Connor on a line centred by Dubois. In 2022-23, Perfetti joined a line with Scheifele and Blake Wheeler for the majority of his minutes. Another great group of linemates, another compelling reason to play wing.

Then Kevin Cheveldayoff traded Dubois to Los Angeles in the 2023 offseason. Cheveldayoff told those of us who were in Nashville covering the draft that Dubois’ departure would give Perfetti an opportunity to grow down the middle, but that’s not how things have gone. Rick Bowness tried Perfetti down the middle for a moment but was dissatisfied, moving him back to wing on a productive line with Ehlers and Namestnikov before reducing his minutes down the stretch.

Arniel has gotten nine points in 11 games from Perfetti while keeping him on the wing. Here’s what Arniel had to say when asked about it at training camp:

“The hardest part for a centreman in the NHL is that you have to go from your defensive corner — you’re in the battle and 90 percent of the time, you’re the low forward — and you’ve got to get up out of the hole and get into the rush and get to the other end of the rink on the offence. And he showed last year playing on the wing, I thought he was real good. He can play both left and right side. He was actually good on the walls.”

I take a lot from this answer. I don’t think it’s Perfetti’s lack of size that keeps him on the wing in Winnipeg — or even his career 35.2 percent faceoff win rate. I think it’s about his speed, just as it is for Vilardi on the top line.

“(Playing wing) got the puck in Perfetti’s hands a lot because he wasn’t coming out of the hole from the corners,” Arniel said. “He was actually getting the puck either first or second touch, and now he’s going from blue line to blue line, being able to make plays that way.”

Perfetti has been making a lot of plays on the wing and has gotten better as the season continues. He’s already scored three power-play goals and, on Friday in Columbus, his puck pursuit led directly to Ehlers’ hat trick goal. I think it’s working, as the line has outscored its opponents 6-1 (on 50 percent of shots and 38 percent of expected goals, mind you).

(Top photo by Jonathan Kozub / NHLI via Getty Images)