{"id":434971,"date":"2023-12-09T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=434971"},"modified":"2023-12-08T14:04:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T19:04:54","slug":"nhl-rumours-jets-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/12\/09\/nhl-rumours-jets-devils\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Rumours: Winnipeg Jets and New Jersey Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another round of NHL rumours as we roll towards the holiday season. Some clubs are trying to add things from their wish list in order to make a more complete lineup. Some teams are hoping to have a new piece for their lineup sometime during the holidays. Goalies, defencemen and forwards are always in demand and general managers don&#8217;t want to break the bank for their new toys. Today&#8217;s NHL rumours focus on the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/11\/09\/nhl-rumours-jets-and-blues\/\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/12\/08\/nhl-rumours-toronto-maple-leafs-and-new-jersey-devils-2\/\" target=\"_self\">New Jersey Devils<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All NHL rumours come from the original source and are subject to change.<\/p>\n<h2>NHL Rumours<\/h2>\n<h3>Winnipeg Jets<\/h3>\n<p><em>Rumour: The Athletic&#8217;s Shayna Goldman took a look at five places <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/12\/02\/nhl-rumours-nashville-predators-and-edmonton-oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Nashville Predators<\/a> defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/barrity01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyson Barrie<\/a> could end up. Winnipeg is one of the five teams that are on the scribe&#8217;s list.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/hayyyshayyy\/status\/1732408763032740245<\/p>\n<p><em>Analysis:<\/em> The Jets are in third place in the Central Division and have weathered a couple of storms. Winnipeg survived the absence of head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bowneri01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rick Bowness<\/a> for a short time and other things. However, there&#8217;s one thing the Jets need to fix and that&#8217;s the power play.<\/p>\n<p>The team&#8217;s extra-man unit isn&#8217;t as bad as the division rival <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/08\/14\/st-louis-blues-top-prospects-2023-edition\/\" target=\"_self\">St Louis Blues.<\/a> However, Winnipeg&#8217;s power play is in the middle of the pack at 18th with an 18.8 percent success rate. Jets brass know those numbers won&#8217;t cut the mustard if it gets into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Winnipeg also struggles at creating goals as it&#8217;s near the bottom of that statistic. Some offensive wizardry is going to be needed in order to make teams sweat a bit more in their own end.<\/p>\n<p>Goldman adds that Bowness does a great job at sheltering his more offensive defencemen. Barrie would likely be on the third pair in even-strength situations and wouldn&#8217;t be put into a lot of high-danger situations.<\/p>\n<p>The Jets aren&#8217;t the type of team that makes a big swing for the fences. Adding someone like Barrie might be a good low-key deal that could be good for Winnipeg.<\/p>\n<p>Nashville has already given permission to deal the veteran blueliner to a new team and there could be some salary retention, which could make the trade easier to facilitate.<\/p>\n<h3>New Jersey Devils<\/h3>\n<p><em>Rumour: The Athletic&#8217;s Eric Stephens talks about the New Jersey Devils <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5114925\/2023\/12\/07\/john-gibson-ducks-devils\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">being a possible suitor<\/a> for Ducks goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=gibsojo02,gibsojo01&amp;search=John+Gibson&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Gibson<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Analysis:<\/em> Gibson has struggled so far this season with a 5-11-0 record and 2.82 goals-against-average. The Pittsburgh native has a .906 save percentage, but those numbers aren&#8217;t the full story with the veteran goalie.<\/p>\n<p>He was part of the team&#8217;s fast start with a .927 save percentage in his first 11 starts. Stephens points out that Gibson&#8217;s goals saved above average is in the positive area for the first time since 2018-19 season. Anaheim had a historically bad season at the backend last year and that led to a 3.99 goals-against-average.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at those numbers and some people think that Gibson is trending downward. However, that doesn&#8217;t seem to be the case. The veteran has struggled due to the bad play in front of him.<\/p>\n<p>There have been rumours in the past with Gibson, but he has a 10-team no-trade list that complicates things. Teams like the Devils and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/12\/07\/nhl-rumours-toronto-maple-leafs-and-buffalo-sabres\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> would love to get their hands on Gibson. However, New Jersey seems to be a better fit with where it is in the standings. The Devils don&#8217;t have a true number one between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/vanecvi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vitek Vanecek<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schmiak01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Akira Schmid<\/a>. Adding Gibson could give the team a true veteran goalie that&#8217;s been through the playoff wars.<\/p>\n<p>New Jersey has plenty of weapons on offence and Gibson likely wouldn&#8217;t be needed to win games by only allowing one or two goals a game. However, Ducks general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/verbepa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-12-08_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pat Verbeek<\/a> isn&#8217;t going to just hand over Gibson without getting the right return.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s another round of NHL rumours as we roll towards the holiday season. Some clubs are trying to add things from their wish list in order to make a more complete lineup. Some teams are hoping to have a new piece for their lineup sometime during the holidays. Goalies, defencemen and forwards are always in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":434973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4321,20,2,4547,31,13,4548,33],"tags":[6492,5983,6094,6145],"class_list":["post-434971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rumours","category-ducks","category-featured","category-hockey","category-predators","category-devils","category-nhl","category-jets","tag-anaheim-ducks-rumours","tag-nashville-predators-rumours","tag-new-jersey-devils-rumours","tag-winnipeg-jets-rumours"],"modified_by":"Alec Roberson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}