One of the most surprising developments of the Jets’ season thus far is the minimal impact injuries have had on the club’s performance.

Some of their resilience is due to the depth no one thought they had, but mostly it has to do with the team having a number of “best players” at different junctures of the campaign.

Think back to October when the Jets struggled out of the gate. Alexander Burmistrov was doing his best impression of a young Pavel Datsyuk and after scoring 10 points in the first 12 games, it looked as though Burmistrov was going to be the offensive leader. Of course, reality caught up to the slight 20-year-old Russian and he’s tallied only seven points in 24 games since. Turns out they didn’t need him to keep up the torrid pace, because someone else was always ready to pick up the slack.

Dustin Byfuglien may bring the size on the Winnipeg blue-line, but Tobias Enstrom was largely considered the Jets’ best rearguard. He had six points in 11 games before going down with an injury and the team subsequently slipped into a miserable November slump. But Enstrom missed the first half of December too, when the Jets rang off win after win. The play and playing time of Byfuglien and Zach Bogosian picked up as a defensive mindset took hold, vaulting Winnipeg into the playoff conversation.

Since the early successes of Burmistrov and Enstrom we’ve seen Evander Kane, Blake Wheeler and even Bryan Little surge at times. Little was perhaps the most disappointing Jet early-on with no goals in his first 14 games, but became an integral part of the turnaround notching 11 in the following 18 before getting hurt.

Heck, even when the team has been without Little and Byfuglien recently, it hasn’t mattered – the wins keep rolling in.

Here we are, near the end of the column, and Ondrej Pavelec hasn’t even been named yet. Some are calling him the best player on the team so far this season, and whether you agree or not, he’s at least in the conversation.

Can the Jets keep it up in January, when the dog days of the long season begin to wear on a roster? Can they keep the success going into a month where they’ll play nine of 13 on the road? At the rate players have been stepping up on this team all season, it’s getting harder to come up with a reason why not.