Jets to play without a captain this season

The Winnipeg Jets announced Friday the team will play the 2022-23 season without a captain.

Blake Wheeler, who has spent the past 12 seasons with the franchise, had served as captain of the Jets since 2016.

"It is the determination of the coaching staff that we will enter the 2022-23 season without a specific captain but rather a group of assistants still be determined," said Jets head coach Rick Bowness "It is our goal to expand the leadership base within our hockey team.

"We have high expectations for our core players and we want to provide them with the opportunity to step into those greater leadership roles as a group. "

Wheeler, 36, posted 17 goals and 60 points in 65 games last season. He is signed through the next two seasons at a cap hit of $8.25 million, the highest on the Jets.
 

Changes in Winnipeg

Bowness was hired earlier this off-season after the Jets missed the playoffs last season while playing under interim coach Dave Lowry and Paul Maurice, who resigned in-season.

"I've been with pretty much the same coaching staff for my entire career, so it does seem like a little bit of a fresh start," forward Mark Scheifele said last month of the coaching change. "There's obviously going to be some new ideas, obviously a lot of the same players, but I loved our group of guys. We have a lot of fantastic guys on our team, a lot of guys that I think from talking to them are just as excited as I am about this upcoming season and what it's going to hold and how things are going to change. I think that's what everyone kind of wanted, everyone kind of wanted to see a little bit of change.

"We needed to see some new things. We want an idea of where the team's going and what our team is going to look like. It will only get more and more interesting as it gets closer to training camp."

Winnipeg had reached the playoffs in five straight seasons before finishing sixth in the Central Division with a 39-32-11 record last year.