Cheveldayoff confident in Jets roster as trade deadline passes

WINNIPEG - Trade Deadline day may have been quieter than usual around the National Hockey League, with 21 total deals being made involving 34 players in total.
That's likely because this season was more of a Trade Deadline Week, with teams making a bunch of moves throughout the last 10 days or so.
"It's been an interesting deadline, for sure," said Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff one hour after the 2 pm CT deadline passed. "Those are the unique things about trade deadlines that sometimes teams that you don't think are selling become sellers. Sometimes teams that are sellers maybe aren't. And then, obviously, there's lots of things that transpire as you go."
Cheveldayoff and the Jets were one of those teams that did some work earlier in the week, acquiring Nino Niederreiter from the Nashville Predators on February 25. Then, on deadline day, they added more depth to their forward group,
bringing in Vladislav Namestnikov
from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.

The deal with Nashville came together relatively quickly, and Namestnikov - a player who has hit double digits in the goal column six times in his career - shares a similar feature to Niederreiter that intrigued the Jets: Versatility.
He's also someone head coach Rick Bowness is familiar with. He coached him for 15 games in Dallas last season, as well as the seven games against Calgary in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"He's a very versatile forward who can play all three forward positions," said Bowness. "He can kill penalties, you can throw him into the top-6 every now and then, and if the power play is struggling, he can help that. It's his versatility that's the big attraction to him. Plus, he's a good teammate and a great person."
Namestnikov is expected to arrive in Winnipeg on Friday night. His availability is still up in the air for Saturday's game against the Edmonton Oilers, but regardless of when he jumps into the line-up, he'll be joining a roster that Cheveldayoff has a lot of belief in.
"We've got a world-class goaltender that certainly can, obviously match-up against any of the goaltenders in this league," said Cheveldayoff, echoing those sentiments about the depth at centre, on the wings, and the blue line.
"If you look at all the different components as to why you think you should be able to compete for a Stanley Cup, I think we've got it."
Heading into Friday's action against the Oilers, the Jets sit in the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference. The group has aspirations to get back to where they were in the standings up until a week ago - battling for top spot in the Central and the conference - and Cheveldayoff feels that's more than attainable.
"Although we didn't get the results that we wanted to in the Kings game, I really liked a lot of things about that game with respect to reigning things back in and playing with the structure and the intensity that we need to," he said. "With just about 20 games left till the end here, it's important that you get playing that right way again."

He feels the players in the room, with the additions of Niederreiter and Namestnikov, has the ability to do just that.
Cheveldayoff and his staff focused a lot on "fit" and didn't feel the price for players on this year's trade market was any sort of barrier. His example was based around opportunity - some teams were in the market for a right-handed defenceman, but another team only has left-handed ones to give.
So when it came down to it, he's comfortable with the decisions he made for this club.
"You need to construct a team that works well together and you need to construct a team that has cohesiveness," Cheveldayoff said. "It's not about getting the next new shiny toy. It's about the pieces that you think that can fit the character and work together with your room. I think the opportunity for these players to show, this group here, that we believed in can take you to the next level."
ICE CHIPS
Cheveldayoff touched on a number of topics throughout his 20-minute conversation with the media.
Winnipeg has five restricted free agents at the end of this season, and Cheveldayoff said conversations with those players haven't started just yet.
On Cole Perfetti's injury, Cheveldayoff was sympathetic to what the 10th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft is going through. After all, his current injury (which, based on the eight-week timeline from mid-February, will keep him out until near the end of the regular season) was almost one year to the day of the upper-body injury that ended his 2021-22 campaign.
"It's unfortunate for a young player to have to go through the adversity that he has but my confidence in how he's going to grow from that is there, for sure," he said. "As far as it affecting him long term, in the future, and that, we're not worried about that at all. It's just unfortunate that the timing of for him is what it is at this point in time."