The Winnipeg Jets have to lift Connor Hellebuyck‘s suspension on Friday. If no trade has been agreed by then, sources have told ESPN the club is likely to resume paying him while asking him to stay away from the rink. Greg Wyshynski put that scenario to the NHL Players’ Association.
“I get the sense the PA wants to see how this all plays out before crossing the bridge,” Wyshynski wrote.
In other words, the union isn’t intervening yet. What Wyshynski laid out next is why it might eventually have to.
“Obviously the concern here is that teams can essentially keep a player off their roster with indefinite suspensions, so long as they pay them and keep them on their active roster,” he wrote. “That’s not a real solution and, if things continue down this road, you have to imagine that the NHLPA will step in at some point.”
That is the part with implications well beyond one goaltender. A club that can pay a player to disappear has found a way around every protection a contract is supposed to offer.
Will Connor Hellebuyck be traded this week?
At least three teams remain involved, according to ESPN’s sources, though nobody is promising anything before Friday. Elliotte Friedman named Buffalo, Carolina and Utah on the 32 Thoughts podcast and said he believes it ends in a trade, noting that Buffalo have wanted him for some time and that Hellebuyck is willing to go there.
READ MORE: A Winnipeg comedian found the perfect Hellebuyck joke
The clock has been expensive. He has been forfeiting close to $39,000 a day and had given up nearly $800,000 as of Monday, with Winnipeg having informed him in writing that the suspension ends on October 23.
There’s also a detail that complicates the picture of a player digging in. Friedman reported that Hellebuyck told the Jets before their season opener on October 2 that he intended to end his absence and report, and was refused. He has been skating regularly in Michigan since.
Captain Adam Lowry said at the weekend that a return would require conversations. Hellebuyck is in the third year of a seven-year, $59.5 million contract.
Read more:
