The NHL officially returns the original Winnipeg Jets' history to the modern day Winnipeg Jets

The Winnipeg Jets are finally home.

The team, its history and its records now belong solely to Winnipeg.

The NHL officially announced today that the statistical history of both iterations of the Winnipeg Jets belong to the franchise.

The NHL and the Jets have announced that the franchise's statistical history will now include both iterations of the Winnipeg Jets, meaning the organization can finally claim a continuous historical record stretching from the original club's WHA beginnings in 1972 all the way through the modern-day Jets. The consolidated history includes the original Jets, the Atlanta Thrashers years and the current Winnipeg Jets.

Forget the Arizona Coyotes... it shouldn't be hard to do, really.

The Jets have always had one of the strangest histories in professional hockey, and for years, even the team's own record book didn't tell the full story.

That changes today.

The story begins in 1972, when Winnipeg became one of the founding franchises of the World Hockey Association. The Jets quickly became one of the WHA's powerhouse clubs, winning three Avco Cups and featuring legends such as Bobby Hull. When the WHA folded in 1979, Winnipeg was among the four franchises absorbed into the NHL.

The original Jets eventually became home to stars such as Dale Hawerchuk and Teemu Selanne, but financial problems eventually forced the organization to leave Manitoba. In 1996, the franchise relocated to Phoenix and became the Coyotes. As is normally the case when an NHL franchise relocates, its statistical history went with it.

That created an incredibly awkward situation when Winnipeg returned to the NHL in 2011.

The new Jets were actually the relocated Atlanta Thrashers, meaning their statistical records began with Atlanta's inaugural 1999-00 season. For years, that made Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and other modern Jets stars part of a record book that had no statistical connection to Hawerchuk, Hull or the other legends who had worn the Jets logo decades earlier.

Meanwhile, the original Jets' records remained tied to the franchise that eventually became the Coyotes and, following Arizona's departure, its hockey assets were transferred to Utah. That left Winnipeg in the bizarre position of celebrating its own history while technically not owning much of it.

Today's announcement finally cleans up that mess.

The Jets can now recognize their history as one story: 1972 to present day. The WHA Jets, the original NHL Jets, the Atlanta years and Jets 2.0 are now part of the same statistical lineage.

For Winnipeg fans, it means legends like Bobby Hull, Dale Hawerchuk and Teemu Selanne can finally sit alongside today's stars in the franchise record book.

After nearly 30 years of historical confusion, the Jets finally have their history back.