Connor Hellebuyck seemed ready to take the ice in his return to Winnipeg and hear any wrath Jets fans had for him while trying to help the New Jersey Devils earn another win.
Instead, the Devils already announced Hellebuyck will not appear in goal against his former team Tuesday night in Winnipeg.
Hellebuyck requested a trade from the Jets in the offseason despite having five years left on his contract. He skipped training camp and was suspended before getting dealt to New Jersey on Oct. 23.
He is Winnipeg’s all-time leader with 345 wins, won the Vezina Trophy three times and was the 2024-25 Hart Memorial Trophy winner for league MVP as Winnipeg made seven postseason appearances with him.
Hellebuyck is 5-0-0 with a 1.96 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage since joining the Devils in a five-player trade. Hellebuyck has faced fewer than 25 shots in four of his five starts.
After he made 23 saves Sunday in a 4-0 road win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Devils posted a statement on social media that cited the analytic “expected win probability.”
“I’m disappointed, but I understand,” Hellebuyck said after his 350th career win. “Selfishly, I want to play, but when you’re looking at the team and what’s best for the team, I understand where they’re coming from. Playing there again and just facing the music and just seeing the reaction, it’d be nice, but it’s out of my hands.”
The Devils cited his three games in six nights along with an upcoming home-and-home set with the Washington Capitals as a reason for sitting him in Winnipeg.
“I can feel the frustration of the fans,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said Monday. “We wanted to get this put to bed. That’s the biggest thing. Now it’s not getting put to bed here. It’s going to linger.”
“I understand the sensitivity to the situation, and when you’re hyper-focused on that game as the Jets fans would be,” New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We can’t control all that kind of stuff. The guy had no training camp, no preseason. We’re just not going to put a guy in that situation.”
Jake Allen, who is 6-3-0 with a 3.20 GAA and an .881 save percentage in nine games, is expected to start as the Devils seek a sixth straight win and 10th win in 11 games.
The Devils have scored at least three goals in nine of their past 10 games and Jack Hughes has seven goals and nine assists in that span after setting up two goals Sunday.
The Jets are 3-5-0 in eight games since the trade.
Winnipeg lost its ninth straight game when it suffered a 7-0 road defeat against the Carolina Hurricanes on Nov. 1 but has responded with three straight wins over the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks and Tampa Bay Lightning.
After pulling off a stunning comeback with four goals in the final 2:39 of regulation last Tuesday to beat Montreal, the Jets followed it up with a 6-2 victory over Vancouver on Thursday.
On Sunday, the Jets blew a three-goal lead by allowing three goals in a span of 4:05 before Mark Scheifele scored a power-play goal with two seconds remaining in a 4-3 win over Tampa Bay.
“It’s keeping the faith in this room, in this group,” Scheifele said. “You’re going to go through tough stretches. Obviously, no one wants to go through a stretch like that, but we’ve learned a lot from it, and we just have to continue to learn.”
