NHL's Saddest Team - A New Hope?

[BautistaBomb19]

The NHL's Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes/Arizona Coyotes and now Utah/Salt Lake City Hockey Club is the team that holds the NHL's lowest points percentage. The team is last behind the Columbus Blue Jackets, Seattle Kraken, Vancouver Canucks, New Jersey Devils (Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts), Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks who all have lower than a .500 points percentage. The top 5 teams are the Vegas Golden Knights, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers and Minnesota Wild. The Winnipeg/Arizona/Utah team has a combined 1 division title and 20 seasons in the playoffs with 1 trip to the conference finals and 0 stanley cup finals appearences, let alone any wins. Now we go back all the way to 1979-80 to the first season for Winnipeg to see if I could GM them to a better points percentage than they have in real life.
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The rule for this, to not take advantage of the dumb AI GM's I won't be trading for players, only Draft Picks if I were to trade a player. This will be a Draft Only, to see if it is possible to Draft your way to a Stanley Cup. I will only sign free agents if they are undrafted, as that way, if I were to run into injury problems, I can sign some players if there is a crisis.
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[BautistaBomb19]

WHA era
Season	Team season	GP	W	L	T	Pts	GF	GA	PIM	Finish	Playoffs
1972–73	1972–73	78	43	31	4	90	285	249	757	1st, Western	

Won quarterfinals (Fighting Saints) 4–1
Won semifinals (Aeros) 4–0
Lost Avco Cup Finals (Whalers) 4–1

1973–74	1973–74	78	34	39	5	73	264	296	673	4th, Western	

Lost quarterfinals (Aeros) 4–0

1974–75	1974–75	78	38	35	5	81	322	293	869	3rd,Canadian	

Did not qualify

1975–76	1975–76	81	52	27	2	106	345	254	940	1st, Canadian	

Won quarterfinals (Oilers) 4–0
Won semifinals (Cowboys) 4–1
Won Avco Cup Finals (Aeros) 4–0

1976–77	1976–77	80	46	32	2	94	366	291	991	2nd, Western	

Won quarterfinals (Mariners) 4–3
Won semifinals (Aeros) 4–2
Lost Avco Cup Finals (Nordiques) 4–3

1977–78	1977–78	80	50	28	2	102	381	270	988	1st, WHA	

Won semifinals (Bulls) 4–1
Won Avco Cup Finals (Whalers) 4–0

1978–79	1978–79	80	39	35	6	84	307	306	1342	3rd, WHA	
Won semifinals (Nordiques) 4–0
Won Avco Cup Finals (Oilers) 4–2

The Winnipeg Jets were one of the original WHA franchises and enjoyed much success with a 302-227-26 record in 555 with 6 playoff appearances in 7 season with 3 AVCO Cup wins over Houston Aeros, New England Whalers and Edmonton Oilers. The Jets had a lot of high hopes heading into the NHL.

[CanuckJohnny]

Cool. Interesting idea. Good luck.