Connor Hellebuyck confirmed in August that he had asked the Winnipeg Jets for a trade months earlier, and the two sides still haven’t found a way out of it. According to Elliotte Friedman, they never will.
Friedman dug into the situation ahead of the latest episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast and came away with sympathy for just about everyone caught up in it – the organization, Hellebuyck himself, and the Jets’ fan base. What he doesn’t have is any belief that the relationship can be repaired, and he pointed to events following Hellebuyck’s Olympic run as the reason.
“I just think that there were some things that happened last year that were out of the Jets’ control, post-Olympics, that have made this situation impossible to resolve. I think the Jets were hopeful that maybe it would change, but I don’t think that’s possible at all. It was something that was out of their hands,” Friedman said.
Friedman on Connor Hellebuyck
He added that he understands where Hellebuyck is coming from, even as someone who would like to see a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup.
“You understand Hellebuyck’s feelings on this. As somebody who badly wants the Stanley Cup to come back to Canada at some point … I was hoping maybe there could be a resolution between Hellebuyck and the Jets, but I just don’t believe that’s possible because of circumstances that are kind of out of their control,” Friedman said.
Elliotte Friedman didn’t specify what those circumstances were, and fans have spent the days since connecting them to the fallout from last February. Hellebuyck was the driving force behind Team USA’s first Olympic men’s hockey gold since 1980, stopping 41 of 42 shots against Canada in the final. He then attended a White House ceremony honoring the team, a decision that drew heavy criticism online and in Canada, and his wife, Andrea, became the target of abuse from hockey fans afterward, including reported death threats.
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Hellebuyck addressed that directly in March.
“The blowback my wife was getting is just not fair,” he said. “I don’t understand how she can take so much heat for just being with me as a hockey player. We’ve done nothing wrong, she’s done nothing wrong.”
Hellebuyck has never publicly named the Olympic fallout as his reason for wanting out, saying only that moving on was the best path forward for himself and his family. That hasn’t stopped fans from treating it as settled, with much of the discussion since Friedman’s comments working from the assumption that the treatment of his family is exactly what made staying in Winnipeg – or even Canada – untenable.
As for where he might land, Friedman named the Buffalo Sabres, Utah Mammoth, and Carolina Hurricanes as the leading contenders, confirmed the Florida Panthers had made an offer, and said no Canadian teams are on Hellebuyck’s list.
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