Friday Four: Jets need to lean on Samberg without Hellebuyck

As it stands today on a Friday late in November, only one Canadian team is currently sitting in a playoff position. The Ottawa Senators are holding down second in the Atlantic Division, while every other team north of the border is on the outside looking in. 

It appears the Calgary Flames have dug themselves too big of a hole to get out of and will ultimately be sellers, and it sounds like the Vancouver Canucks are exploring the same path. It was reported earlier this week the Canucks are gauging the market on some of their veteran players.

That leaves Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg still hoping to eventually lockdown a spot in the tournament. The Maple Leafs may have the toughest road to get there given how poorly they’ve played, while the Jets and Oilers have also been sliding down the standings of late.

Even though they technically aren’t one of the East’s top eight teams, Montreal isn’t in a bad position. The Canadiens are tied for the final wild-card spot, despite a challenging November. 

There’s still plenty of time left and one good week right now can completely change your fortunes, but the Canadiens, Leafs, Jets and Oilers are all looking for a spark to get themselves into a more secure place in the standings. 

Here are four players on Canadian teams who could be x-factors to helping these aforementioned teams get into the playoffs:

Dylan Samberg, Winnipeg Jets

The Jets appeared to be picking up right where they left off last year before a recent slide and injuries have now put the team in a predicament. Losers of seven of their past 10, Winnipeg has also lost star goalie Connor Hellebuyck for four to six weeks. There’s a chance the Jets’ playoff position could be in real jeopardy if this slide continues while Hellebuyck is sidelined. 

Winnipeg relies on Hellebuyck so much and it will have to tighten up defensively to compensate for not having him between the pipes, which is why Samberg could be its most important player for the foreseeable future.

Samberg isn’t flashy and you won’t see his name frequently appear on the scoresheet, but he’s very effective. Last season, Samberg and Neal Pionk were on the ice for just 23 goals against in 727 even-strength minutes and the Jets had 90 more scoring chances than they gave up when that duo was out there. Samberg was also a plus-34 a year ago, good enough for a top-10 ranking in the NHL. 

Maybe the biggest way to measure Samberg’s impact is when he’s out of lineup. In 2024-25, Samberg missed 22 games and the Jets were just 11-9-2. With him they were 45-13-12. This season it’s been a similar story, with Samberg limited to six games because of injury, as you can see the difference in their defensive play with and without Samberg in the lineup.

Now with Pionk missing a bit of time due to injury, there’s even more pressure on Samberg’s shoulders to help Eric Comrie and the Jets keep the puck out of the net. 

Jack Roslovic, Edmonton Oilers

It’s been a rough stretch for Edmonton, who now have just one regulation win in a month. They’ve also been on the wrong end of some lopsided scores in November, losing 9-1 to Colorado, 5-1 to Buffalo, 7-4 to Washington and most recently, 8-3 to Dallas. You can understand why panic is starting to set in for Oilers fans. 

It would be easy to choose one of the goalies here to help turn Edmonton’s season in the right direction, as the Oilers have been desperate for saves for the past several seasons now and better goaltending does solve a lot of problems, but secondary scoring is important, too.

That’s where Roslovic comes in, as he’s been one of the most impactful off-season signings who didn’t even put pen to paper in the off-season. The Oilers signed Roslovic a couple of days into the regular season and he’s paid huge dividends already. Roslovic has 10 goals in 23 games and is on pace for 64 points, which would easily be a career best. The 28-year-old is only making $1.5 million on a one-year deal, making it a low-risk bet for the Oilers that’s really given the team an offensive boost. 

Outside of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, no Oilers forward has more goals and points than Roslovic. Not only that, Edmonton was missing Zach Hyman to start the year and Roslovic’s offence really helped compensate for that loss. They’ve also lost a lot of their secondary scoring from last season, as Connor Brown and Corey Perry, who combined for 32 goals in 2024-25, have departed. There’s only so many minutes McDavid and Draisaitl can play, so Edmonton needs Roslovic to help lighten the weight they’re carrying. 

It hasn’t been a great year overall for the Oilers, who are two points out of a playoff spot right now, and if they didn’t have Roslovic, they likely would have dug themselves a much deeper hole. If Roslovic can’t keep this pace going, it’s hard not to see things getting worse for the Oilers. 

Jakub Dobes, Montreal Canadiens

It’s been a tale of two seasons for Dobes. In October he was lights-out, going 6-0-0 with a .930 save percentage. But in November it’s been a different story, Dobes has just two wins and a mark of .859. It’s not a coincidence the Canadiens fell from the top of the Atlantic to out of a playoff spot during this stretch.

Compounding the problem is Montreal starter Samuel Montembeault has struggled mightily. Montembeault has a dismal .852 save percentage and sits 75th out of 76 goalies in goals saved above expected. Montreal is now tied for 31st in team save percentage; only the Oilers are worse. 

The Canadiens have built a really solid team that’s at risk of being derailed by bad goaltending. Montreal’s top line is very potent, with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield emerging as stars in this league. Both players are getting serious consideration for the Olympics from their respective countries.

On the blue line, the Canadiens can move the puck and have one of the most mobile units in the NHL. The addition of Noah Dobson has given the team a huge lift and made Montreal tough to handle. Dobson, Lane Hutson and Mike Matheson can all skate and snap the puck around, and they’ve helped the Canadiens jump all the way up to third overall in league scoring, compared to 17th a year ago. 

If they can’t get saves, though, it’s going to be a huge problem. Montreal could be in the market for help between the pipes, but until then, if Dobes can regain that form he had from earlier in the season, the Canadiens will be a no-doubt playoff team. 

More games like Wednesday night’s solid outing against Utah would help. Even if Montembeault raises his game, Montreal can’t play him night in and night out with a condensed schedule due to an Olympic year. It’ll at least need Dobes to play once a week if not more to help share the workload. If Montreal can just find a way to get league-average goaltending, it will be tough to stop. 

Easton Cowan, Toronto Maple Leafs

The Maple Leafs probably didn’t anticipate relying on Cowan this much right away. Cowan earned a spot on the main roster out of training camp and has quickly vaulted up the lineup into the top six, averaging close to 19 minutes of ice time in the past three games. That’s in part because of all the injuries the Leafs have been dealing and the fact that he’s been one of their better forwards. 

Toronto entered the week dead last in the Eastern Conference and if it has any hopes of clawing its way out of it and getting back in the playoff picture, it will have to start immediately. Their biggest issue has been in the defensive zone, as the Maple Leafs rank 29th in goals against, but the offence is starting to slow down as well. The Leafs haven’t scored more than two goals in four of their past five games, as their high team shooting percentage is starting to come down. Getting Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies back in the lineup will help, though it wouldn’t hurt if Cowan started finishing some of his chances, either. 

The rookie deserves a lot of credit for how many scoring opportunities he’s generating, but he’s still only found the back of the net twice all year, including a massive game-tying goal in Columbus on Wednesday night. Cowan is shooting only 7.1 per cent and that’s inevitably going to come up if he continues to get quality looks, which could unlock something the Leafs have been striving for the past few years.

If Cowan can become a potent offensive player, Toronto may be able to spread their offence around over three lines. Matthews, Knies, John Tavares, William Nylander and Cowan could give the Leafs a scoring threat on every line in their top nine depending on how they want to deploy them. 

So far, off-season acquisitions like Matias Maccelli and Dakota Joshua haven’t panned out offensively and Max Domi hasn’t been contributing much at all, so it seems the only way the Leafs are going to get some secondary scoring right now is from players like Nick Robertson, Bobby McMann and Cowan.

It’s probably not ideal for the Leafs to be relying on an inexperienced 20-year-old for major contributions, but the reality is, if they want to make the playoffs, they may have little choice.

More from Sportsnet

‘All about winning’: Hughes not ready to surrender season amid Canucks’ trade noise

‘I need more out of myself’: Leafs’ Dakota Joshua responds to healthy scratch