Thinking about this a bit, there is a tendency to maintain the rivalry against other teams right through the playoffs. That stands in the way of Jets, or any other team, becoming 'Canada's Team', even temporarily.
But being the only Canadian team in the Central means we don't really have any rivalries with other Canadian teams. There is a lot of lingering resentment of the Oilers that goes back 30 years to our frustration with being unable to get out of the old Smythe Division. There is the usual Canadian resentment of the 'Centre of the Universe'. There is annoyance with the COTU caused by some of the Laffs petty, insecure fans needing to put down Laine at every opportunity. But that is a fairly small subset of their fans.
Those are things we may have against those 2 Canadian teams but even they are relatively small. Personally, I just laugh at those Leafs fans who still need to prove that they made the right choice taking Matthews 1st. Just making fools of themselves.
Doesn't create any rivalry for me. Well, except for the part where I take a little extra joy every time Laine creates a little more of that insecurity in them.
I will never entirely get over the angst of losing to the Oilers year after year. But it is fading with time. As soon as we win a SC and they continue to struggle it will cease to be a thing for me.
My point is that we are not natural rivals of any Canadian team. So I don't have any trouble bandwagoning with any of them and any of their fans who want to jump aboard with us are welcome afaic.
For me, the lone exception is the Canucks. Their fans are just not very nice people.
Never mind riots. Much more importantly, my bandwagoning was rudely rejected in 2011. They said something to the effect of, 'We've waited 43 years for this and we aren't sharing it with anybody. Take your Canadian flag and get off our bandwagon'. Never mind that I was deeply wounded.
They rejected Canada!
Lets not stoop to the level of a Canucks fan! Ptooi! I welcome all those who want to adopt the Jets as their playoff team. I especially invite our fellow Canadians to climb aboard.