Коннор Хеллебайкийн ирээдүй болон түүний NHL-д үзүүлэх тоглолтын чадамжийн асуудал

There’s one vital question about Connor Hellebuyck’s future that remains unanswered, regardless of whether the Winnipeg Jets pull off a preseason blockbuster or bring their No. 1 netminder back for another season.

What is the 2025 Hart Trophy winner as league MVP and three-time Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goaltender actually capable of?

The specifics are critical to explore, even as the broad strokes of Hellebuyck’s offseason are well known. He spoke critically about the team’s direction at his exit interviews and then waited, without comment, as the team pursued trade opportunities that did not come to fruition. Winnipeg came close to a trade with the Buffalo Sabres at the draft, and despite the close proximity of the 2026-27 season, it’s believed Hellebuyck is still keen to be moved.

His teammates expect him to be at training camp. They’re just not talking as if they’re 100 percent sure Hellebuyck, 33, is a forever Jet.

“I hope Helle is back playing for us,” Josh Morrissey told The Athletic. “He’s the best goalie in the world. But what happens, doesn’t happen, whatever, that’s with him and his agent and the organization.”

“Until something happens, he’s a Jet, he’s a good friend, and we’re excited to get him back,” Jets captain Adam Lowry said.

The unspoken part? Hellebuyck was not the best goaltender in the world last season — at least, not while playing for the Jets.

Hellebuyck posted an .895 save percentage, missed approximately a month to have a minor knee surgery and finished 13th in the goals saved above expected after he led the league in that category for two straight seasons. Even after a dominant performance en route to American gold at the Olympic Games in Milan, there are reasons to question Hellebuyck’s status as a Vezina Trophy front-runner.

Was it a blip, part of recovery from his knee scope or a sign Hellebuyck should carry a buyer-beware label — whether for the Jets, who signed Stuart Skinner in the offseason, or for Cup-contending teams seeking to acquire the missing piece of a championship team?

At 33, Hellebuyck is well beyond a typical goalie’s physical prime, and history tells us a steep decline could be nearing. At the population level, NHL goalie performance peaks between ages 26 and 30, with age 27 producing the best statistics on average. Goalies usually flatten out to approximately league-average performance around 31 and 32, and then progressively — and often dramatically — decline from there.

That’s not a good sign for projecting Hellebuyck’s future. We have seen, however, plenty of elite goalies, which he clearly is, play well into their mid- to late 30s.

Hellebuyck is one of four goalies to win three or more Vezinas since the criteria for the award changed in 1981. The other three all extended their dominance well beyond 33.

Patrick Roy backstopped the Colorado Avalanche to a Stanley Cup at 35, winning the Conn Smythe for a spectacular playoff run, and at 36, he won the Jennings Trophy and was a Vezina finalist. Martin Brodeur won two Vezinas and a Jennings after turning 33 and played upward of 75 games per season until he was 37 years old. Dominik Hašek won the Hart and Vezina trophies in his age-33 season, then went on to win two more Vezinas and each of his two Stanley Cup championships. Statistically, you can argue Hašek and Brodeur’s best seasons came at 34.

Even more recently, Marc-André Fleury won the Vezina and Jennings at 36, and Sergei Bobrovsky was a finalist for the Vezina at 35.

The point is, some goalies are just built different, and Hellebuyck fits that mold. He’s the most decorated goalie of his generation and one of the few remaining workhorses, having led the NHL in starts on five occasions and regularly playing 60-plus games per season. Hellebuyck still managed to make 57 starts last season (tied for fifth most in the league), despite missing double-digit games over approximately a month in November and December.

That brings us to another potential red flag. Hellebuyck wasn’t his usual spectacular self in the 43 NHL games that followed his knee surgery last season. He finished the season with a career-worst .895 save percentage and ranked outside of the top 10 in goals saved above expected for the first time in seven years.

Historically, it’s often a good idea to bet against an aging player who struggled to perform at his best after an injury, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Hellebuyck’s days of elite goaltending are behind him. It’s a very similar situation to what the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy went through three years ago.

In September 2023, Vasilevskiy had back surgery, which forced him to miss the first 20 games of the 2023-24 season. The Lightning struggled mightily over that stretch, which may have played a role in Vasilevskiy returning to action three weeks ahead of his projected timeline. Once he returned, Vasilevskiy went straight into the workhorse role, starting 15 of the next 17 games for Tampa Bay, and it didn’t go particularly well. He posted career lows in save percentage (.900) and GSAx (-11.99) that season.

Sound a bit like Hellebuyck’s 2025-26 season? The Jets sputtered to a 3-8-1 record during his absence, prompting a surprisingly quick return to the ice. Not only did he start a game only 21 days removed from surgery, but Hellebuyck also started the next eight games and 16 of the next 18, and he went on to post career lows statistically.

But after a full offseason in 2024, Vasilevskiy returned to his elite form. In the two seasons since, he has a league-best .917 save percentage, saved an impressive 46.61 goals above expected and added another Vezina to his mantle. Hellebuyck has given us plenty of reason to believe he can follow a similar path, with no better example than his heroics at the Olympics. After surgery, he was the best player on the ice in the gold medal game.

The eventual decline is inevitable, but Hellebuyck’s game is built to age more gracefully than most. The position puts immense strain on the body, but he doesn’t overextend himself nearly as much as the average netminder. Hellebuyck relies on world-class reads and anticipation to get to his spots early. He moves calmly and efficiently for the most part, which is a major reason he’s been able to play so many games so often with his bigger-than-average frame.

Hellebuyck uses his size to his advantage and does a lot of little things that limit wear and tear on his body. He plays deeper in his crease than most, which minimizes his movement and the demand on his skating. He plays light on his edges and eases his way into the butterfly and post integrations, and when he’s on the ice he keeps his hips tall. Not only are these efficient ways of staying ahead of the play and filling the net, they’re also much less demanding on the body — and specifically the hips.

His mind for the game isn’t going anywhere, and he should be able to compensate for any decline in athleticism as he ages. Even if he eventually loses a half step, his greatness isn’t a product of miraculous acrobatic stops anyway. Those instances are few and far between, and as long as he doesn’t have to make them too regularly, he should have no problem making them well into his late 30s.

There are five seasons left on Hellebuyck’s $8.5 million average annual value contract, signed with Winnipeg in 2023, and his full no-movement clause turns into a 10-team approved trade list July 1, 2027. For now, the possibilities range from a happy Hellebuyck returning to Winnipeg, to a preseason holdout or even a midseason blockbuster. The Skinner signing buys the Jets time to find the right deal, but other teams may need to see their own goaltending fail before they feel pressured to make a trade.

At this stage in Hellebuyck’s career, there’s certainly a risk his best play is behind him. There’s plenty of data and anecdotal evidence that point to that being the case. Outliers exist for every trend, however, and if there’s one thing Hellebuyck has consistently been for most of his life, it’s an outlier. In his rare case, the potential reward of having the best goalie on the planet makes him worth the gamble — wherever he plays out the rest of his deal.