Cole Perfetti’s contract is already looking like a steal

Oct 18, 2026, 12:00 EDT

Perfetti has five goals and three assists through eight games this season.

Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

It wasn’t the smoothest offseason for the Winnipeg Jets. Coming off a disappointing 82-point season that saw them miss the playoffs for the first time since 2022, star goaltender Connor Hellebuyck requested a trade from the Jets that he publicly confirmed in late August, souring the vibes in Winnipeg coming into this season.

Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff did get one bit of business done over the offseason, however, that is already looking like a home run. Winnipeg signed forward Cole Perfetti to a five-year, $30 million contract extension in July. Through eight games this season, the Whitby, Ontario native has five goals and three assists for eight points, helping the Jets to a 4-2-2 start and making the $6 million average annual value on his extension look like a bargain.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton were joined by Winnipeg Sports Talk‘s Andrew Paterson to discuss Perfetti’s strong start to the season.

Carter Hutton: Is this the contract that we’re going to look back on that saved the Winnipeg Jets because of his performance so far?

Andrew Paterson: From a cap perspective, the early parts of the Perfetti extension could not look much better. Last year was a big year for Cole. You go back to the year before, the Presidents’ Trophy year, and he scored the most famous goal in franchise history, the 1.6 seconds to get it to overtime and they win. That was absolute magic, and then he has the high ankle sprain. It keeps him out for the first almost two months of the season, and he was rushing to get back and really feeling the pressure as the team was struggling. He really didn’t look like himself until maybe the final 20 games of the season. In some ways it was almost a lost year, and I think that really freaked him out because that was a contract year for him.

To your point, I think what this ended up doing is that the Jets still had faith that he would be a player, and I think they got him at a rate that maybe would not have been possible if he didn’t have that. The great thing about Cole is that now he comes in and he doesn’t have to worry about anything other than helping his team win hockey games. And oh by the way, not only do you have a new contract, we’ve got a spot for you riding shotgun with #55 and #81 on one of the best lines in the NHL, and the numbers have followed. I think there’s a few savvy Jets fans that went and grabbed Cole in the late rounds of some hockey drafts this year, that have really been quite excited about how things have worked. And he’s playing with a confidence that’s beyond what we’ve seen before, particularly when it comes to shooting the puck. The two goals that he scored against Minnesota on Tuesday, I’m not sure the puck would’ve been on his stick a total of half a second for both goals. It’s been fun watching him do what he’s doing right now.