Can we build the Winnipeg Jets a playoff team from Dubois, Hellebuyck and

Kevin Cheveldayoff hasn’t publicly endorsed or refuted a rebuild but Winnipeg is on the cusp of multiple seismic, franchise-altering moves. Cheveldayoff’s transactions will create clarity, charting Winnipeg’s future without Pierre-Luc Dubois, Blake Wheeler, Connor Hellebuyck and probably without Mark Scheifele.

I expect the Jets to pursue a competitive path forward, prioritizing packages involving younger, team-controlled roster players as opposed to shopping exclusively for prospects and picks. The latter path would signal a rebuild, but I expect Winnipeg to push for a second straight playoff appearance, historic loss of talent be darned.

Is that even possible?

How could the Jets start with the holes they have now, grant Dubois’ and Hellebuyck’s trade requests, move on from Wheeler and decide on Scheifele’s future — with the whole league eager to empathize with Cheveldayoff’s difficult position as they try to exploit it — and make the playoffs?

I’m glad my editor assigned me this impossible task you asked.

Here is my best attempt to chart Winnipeg’s seemingly impossible road ahead.

The first step in this process is to acknowledge that NHL teams have tried to invent this particular lightbulb before.

We’ll skip the pre-cap era, dodging Edmonton’s 1991 financial purge of Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson or Philadelphia’s 1992 acquisition of Eric Lindros for a king’s ransom, with Peter Forsberg topping a star-studded group of players that also featured two first-round picks and $15 million in cash.

Think more of the 2006 Oilers, who traded peak Chris Pronger and lost second-pairing defenceman Jaroslav Spacek along with Michael Peca, Sergei Samsonov, Radek Dvorak and Georges Laraque to unrestricted free agency (and then traded top forward, Ryan Smyth, at the 2007 trade deadline.) Edmonton went from Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to 10 straight postseason misses.

There was also the 2009 Montreal Canadiens, who said goodbye to Saku Koivu, Alexei Kovalev, Robert Lang and Alex Tanguay to bring in Brian Gionta, Mike Cammalleri, Hal Gill and Scott Gomez. They made the playoffs in three of the following six seasons, going as far as the 2010 Eastern Conference final.

Chicago beat the Flyers who beat those 2010 Canadiens, but then ran itself straight into a cap crunch. The Blackhawks traded Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg and Andrew Ladd — Jets fans will remember two of those players fondly — and took a couple of seasons to recover from it. Chicago qualified for the 2011 playoffs as the No. 8 seed, but was defeated by Vancouver in the first round, then lost to Phoenix in the 2012 first round before winning it all again in 2013 and 2015.

The most recent examples don’t involve nearly the same level of playoff success.

Columbus lost Sergei Bobrovsky, Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene to free agency in 2019 but beat Toronto in the 2020 qualifying round before losing to Tampa Bay in the first…