Once a reliable bottom-six grinder, Morgan Barron is rewriting his story with the Jets, opening the 2025–26 season with four points in three games and hinting at a potential breakout year.
Morgan Barron is off to the strongest start of his NHL career. Through three games of the 2025–26 season, the Winnipeg Jets forward has recorded two goals and two assists for four points, establishing himself as one of the early bright spots in Winnipeg’s lineup.
Known primarily as a bottom line forward, Barron’s sudden scoring surge hopefully signals a potential evolution in his role. His four points give him an average of 1.33 points per game, very far above his 2024–25 pace, when he produced 15 points (8 goals, 7 assists) in 74 games.
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Barron, 26, was selected by the New York Rangers in the sixth round (174th overall) of the 2017 NHL Draft. The Halifax, Nova Scotia native played three seasons at Cornell University from 2017 to 2020, where he developed into a standout forward and earned ECAC Hockey Player of the Year honors in his junior season. After signing his entry-level contract with the Rangers in 2020, Barron made his NHL debut during the 2020–21 season but was eventually traded to the Winnipeg Jets as part of the deal that sent forward Andrew Copp to New York.
Since joining the Jets, Barron has steadily carved out a role as a dependable bottom-six forward, combining physicality with steady two-way play. His continued development led to a two-year, $3.7 million contract extension in July 2025.
Entering this season, Barron has quietly become a fan favorite with the Jets, tallying 62 points in 241 games across five seasons. The hope is his early season success can help Winnipeg when they really need depth scoring as Barron’s four points is more than the season totals of Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist and Vladislav Namestnikov combined. For a player long regarded as a depth option, this could be the beginning of a defining chapter in his NHL career as Barron may finally be able to tap into the first round upside that the Rangers saw in him back in 2017.
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