After a summer of speculation, Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck officially went public with his long-rumoured request to be traded.
In his statement, released Thursday via agent Ray Petkau, Hellebuyck said he first made the request to the team “several months ago” and expressed his desire to keep things quiet and respectful.
“With training camp approaching,” he wrote, via Petkau, “I felt it was important to publicly confirm my request.”
The NHL has seen some big-name goalies move to new markets this summer, including starters for the past two Stanley Cup champs. The Florida Panthers let Sergei Bobrvosky go in free agency, where he signed with Toronto, and traded for Jacob Markstrom from New Jersey in his place. Frederik Andersen, fresh off winning the Cup in Carolina, is now a member of the Edmonton Oilers.
Now, get ready for the biggest move of them all.
It’s hard to imagine a more coveted netminder becoming available. Hellebuyck is a three-time Vezina Trophy winner, most recently earning the title in back-to-back seasons in 2023-24 and 2024-25. He won the William M. Jennings Trophy both of those years, too, and capped that ’24-’25 campaign with the Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP — an honour rarely bestowed on a netminder.
The 33-year-old shone on the international stage earlier this year as he backstopped Team USA to Olympic gold. That success, and his public honestly afterwards as he voiced his frustrations about not being able to win it all in Winnipeg, first fuelled speculation about his future.
Now, we know the netminder has played his last game as a Jet.
Hellebuyck is under contract through 2030-31, at $8.5 million a year. That's the third-highest AAV for a goaltender league-wide (tied with Vancouver's Thatcher Demko) behind Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy and Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers.
He has a full no-movement clause for one more season, putting him firmly in control here. Starting next year, that changes to a modified clause that states he must submit a 10-team approved trade list.
So, where might the elite netminder be traded? Where could he fit best, in terms of opportunity to thrive — and, of course, to win? We’ve got a few ideas.
Had things gone differently around the draft, Hellebuyck would already be a Sabre. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported back in June that he believed Winnipeg and Buffalo had been talking about a deal — and that Hellebuyck “would have been willing to waive (his no-movement clause) to go to Buffalo.”
Ultimately, no trade came to fruition, of course. (Imagine, for a second, if a proposed trade had gone through at the time — how different might this off-season have looked around the league?)
Just because conversations stalled then, doesn’t mean they can’t pick up again. Two months later, Hellebuyck-to-Buffalo still makes a ton of sense. There would be no better way to build on last season’s success than bringing in a bona fide No. 1 netminder to backstop them into their new era of contention. Even though the club’s by-committee approach to the crease was effective last year — between Alex Lyon (.907 save percentage in 36 appearances), Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (.910 SV% in 35 games) and Colten Ellis (.903 SV% in 16 games), the Sabres posted the third-best team save percentage league-wide (.900) — the opportunity to land a true star in Hellebuyck is a massive upgrade by any measure.
It makes sense for Hellebuyck, too. He’d be joining a passionate U.S. market relatively close to home for the Michigander, and a team on the rise. And he’d be playing behind a talented young blue line led by Rasmus Dahlin and featuring Owen Power and a Mattias Samuelsson fresh off a breakout year, as well as newcomers Olen Zellweger and Louis Crevier. There’s tons more room for growth there — especially if GM Jarmo Kekalainen can plug in an elite netminder as the last line of defence.
