Declaring your team's most important player is not a simple thing. It's not always the most valuable guy or the highest-points producer. It is the player who makes your team go; the one you can't afford to lose, even if all he contributes can't be measured by fancy stats.

Jets' most important player: Jacob Trouba, defenseman

Last season might have been a seminal one for the Winnipeg Jets -- who returned to the playoffs for the first time since moving back to the prairies from Atlanta at the end of the 2011 season -- but a first-round sweep at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks revealed just how much work is ahead for the hard-luck franchise.

That’s where Jacob Trouba comes in. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff has painstakingly built a big, fast, physical team, and Trouba is a cornerstone member of a young defensive corps that has a chance to be among the league’s best.

Last season, the Jets finished tied for 10th in goals against per game after years of being a league doormat in that defensive category. Trouba was the ninth overall pick in the 2012 draft and joined the Jets after a stellar freshman season at the University of Michigan. He made the jump from college hockey almost seamlessly, leading all rookie skaters in average ice time per game in 2013-14 and earning serious consideration for the Calder Trophy despite missing almost a month because of injury. Trouba's absence from the lineup was a factor in the Jets' missing the playoffs that spring.

Last season, Trouba played most of the season with Mark Stuart, although he did play on the team’s top pairing with Tobias Enstrom when both Zach Bogosian and Stuart were injured. Trouba averaged more than 19 minutes of ice time per game in his first playoff run, and at 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds he remains a key figure for the Jets moving forward. He has good offensive skills to go with a punishing physical game, and he is already being penciled in as a top defender on the Under-24 North American squad for next fall’s World Cup of Hockey.

If the Jets are to avoid sliding back beneath the playoff surface -- as we've seen teams such as Colorado and Dallas do in recent years -- Trouba’s evolution will have to continue on an upward arc.

Beyond next season, it is imperative that teams hoping to remain contenders have cornerstone defenders who fall into the "stud" category, and given what the 21-year-old Trouba has shown in his brief NHL career, there is nothing to suggest he can’t fulfill the lofty expectations he’s created for himself and his team.