Коннор Хеллебак NHL-ээс солилцоо хийхийг хүссэн нь Виннипег Жетс багийн ирээдүйг эргэлзээнд орууллаа

In many ways, the Connor Hellebuyck situation is more painful than other high-profile NHL exits of late.

This isn’t Matthew and Brady Tkachuk declining to sign extensions with the Calgary Flames and Ottawa Senators because of a desire to move south. Hellebuyck is only two seasons into a seven-year deal with the Winnipeg Jets and has now very publicly asked for a trade.

Hellebuyck is also not trying to cherry-pick a destination or three using his full no-movement clause, which has become a recent league trend. He’s willing — as reported by The Athletic’s Chris Johnston — to join a “variety of teams,” a small positive for the Jets.

What’s not so positive for Winnipeg is that one of the best players in franchise history, a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie and a Hart Trophy recipient as league MVP, has been rather plainspoken about his concerns over whether it’s possible to win in the only market he’s known. Which, in turn, casts a long shadow over any trade the Jets now attempt to make.

“Can you get the pieces that you need? Will the players come? These are always questions that you have in Winnipeg,” Hellebuyck said during a blistering end-of-season rant in April, after the Jets missed the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. “I’ve made it my home and I like it here, but the majority of the league doesn’t feel the same way.”

Hellebuyck was really only saying the quiet part out loud. With the number of players receiving these contractual carveouts having dramatically risen in recent years — roughly 56 percent of eligible players possessed some form of trade protection last season — more and more NHL players are putting Canadian teams on their no-trade clauses, including some whose lists include all seven of the country’s clubs. A pronounced star exodus from Canadian teams has brought the discussion to the forefront more than ever, creating new existential questions north of the border.

In addition to the Tkachuk brothers departing the country for the Florida Panthers, Quinn Hughes went from Vancouver to Minnesota, Mitch Marner opted against re-signing with Toronto in order to play in Vegas, Rasmus Andersson was dealt from Calgary to Vegas, and Nikolaj Ehlers chose the Carolina Hurricanes over the Jets in free agency. The futures of Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews in Edmonton and Toronto, respectively, continue to loom in this discussion, too.

The motives vary by the individual, but the decisions to leave have often boiled down to a combination of: too much attention, too little sunshine, too high taxes and not enough winning in the seven Canadian markets, with the country stuck in a Stanley Cup drought since the Montreal Canadiens won in 1992-93. It’s a conversation that feels personal for many fans, especially in Winnipeg, where they’ve already lost their team once and will always battle the perception that they’re too small a market to succeed in a league that’s becoming increasingly more American. Having your franchise player, a future Hall of Famer, ask out in such a public way is only going to enhance that view.

With Hellebuyck’s exit seemingly inevitable, the Jets are now at a difficult crossroads, one where they can either attempt to (a) chase competitiveness with what appears to be an older, mediocre roster on the decline or (b) begin a painful rebuild process the way Calgary and Vancouver have this offseason. It’s also an open question whether the Jets’ cash-flow situation holds up as well as it has during these contending years — and with the salary cap beginning to skyrocket.

To date, that hasn’t been an issue for the 2.0 version of the Jets franchise. Winnipeg has been driving enough revenue the past 15 years to be a sustainable long-term market in the league, especially with all of the revenue sharing and lucrative national revenue sources split among the league’s 32 teams. So, the threat to Winnipeg isn’t so much the market size or the dollars and cents; it’s this rising notion that stars don’t want to play there, which could make their attempts to compete more challenging than ever.

Especially if ugly seasons like last year pile up and the problem continues to snowball.

Winning hasn’t been a problem in the 15 seasons since they inherited the remnants of the basket case Atlanta Thrashers franchise. The Jets have largely been very competitive, making the playoffs in seven of the past nine years and winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s top team in 2024-25. In fact, only six teams have won more regular-season games than Winnipeg in that span, marking the Jets as one of the NHL’s small-market success stories rather than one of the league’s problems. Of course, Hellebuyck has been the lynchpin in that success.

Now he is, understandably, being made out to be the villain in all of this, with frustrated fans and influencers critical of the fact he’s asking out mid-contract. But I’m also sympathetic to his stance. Yes, he signed a seven-year contract in the fall of 2023, but since when in pro sports is that a commitment to the bitter end? Teams ship out players who underperform early into long-term deals all the time; it seems only natural that star players will question their futures when a team dramatically craters like the Jets did last year.

At 33 years old, Hellebuyck may yet still be dominant for another few seasons, the way some older netminders such as Sergei Bobrovsky have managed. But his timeline to try and win the Stanley Cup is finite. And he’s given the entirety of his 12-year pro career to the Jets organization, which drafted him in the fifth round back in 2012.

Perhaps you can argue that Hellebuyck is pulling the plug too early, given the Jets were a 110-plus-point team the previous two seasons before last year’s derailment. Maybe you believe there’s more juice there to squeeze, with Josh Morrissey, Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele still a capable trio of top-end talent to build around.

If you dig another layer deeper, however, this is an organization without much young talent coming and questionable depth overall. They also struggled to add much in the way of reinforcements this offseason, after finishing seventh-to-last following the loss of Ehlers to free agency in 2025 and some ugly underlying numbers.

To close observers, last season didn’t look like a one-off.

It’s not an unreasonable position for Hellebuyck to take, in other words, that the Jets’ contention window has closed for this iteration of the roster, something for which the organization is ultimately culpable. And he deserves credit for giving GM Kevin Cheveldayoff a long list of places where he’s willing to go, which should theoretically make moving on easier.

It’s now vital for Winnipeg to pull off a great trade that helps reset their direction, ideally one that makes the Jets younger, speedier and deeper in front of their next starting goalie. But whichever player(s) they attempt to acquire for Hellebuyck will have to want to play there — a far harder sell after last season, and after everything their superstar, recognized as the best in the world at his position, had to say about the challenges of winning in Winnipeg on his way out the door.

If anything, the organization has proven that it can win a lot of games despite the inherent challenges of its market. But the league is also going through a massive sea change right now, both economically and in the mindset of its player base. The salary cap will potentially hit $150 million within the next five or six years. NHL stars are clearly now more willing to use their considerable leverage to get bigger contracts and play where they want to play. These aren’t likely to be great developments for smaller markets.

The optimist’s view is to believe the Winnipegs of the league can continue to pivot in these situations and come out ahead, the way the Jets did when forced to move on from Patrik Laine, Jacob Trouba and others in the past. Smart management teams, even in small markets, find a way.

The pessimist’s view?

Everything is moving the wrong way for teams such as Winnipeg — and this may just be the beginning.