Hellebuyck ready to be Jets’ No. 1?
Goalie has confidence but expect Pavelec, Hutchinson to have a say
Three’s company or is three going to be a crowd?
It’s a question the Winnipeg Jets must seriously consider as they work toward determining how many goalies will be on the opening-day roster for the upcoming NHL season.
With training camp less than a month away, projecting who will be the men left standing in the crease remains a relatively difficult chore.
The Jets’ goaltending stable includes some nice organizational depth, with 2012 draft pick Jamie Phillips turning pro and joining Connor Hellebuyck, Ondrej Pavelec, Michael Hutchinson and Eric Comrie in the system.
The biggest question going into the season revolves around Hellebuyck, who made an outstanding impact after being recalled last season and took a firm grip on the starting job after Pavelec was sidelined with a knee injury following a collision with Arizona Coyotes captain Shane Doan.
Hellebuyck showed right away he’s a technically sound goalie who carries himself with both an air of calm and confidence.
With 11 wins and two shutouts in his first 18 games, Hellebuyck immediately showed his vast potential.
But like Hutchinson the season before after his meteoric rise, Hellebuyck’s play dropped off a bit. During his final eight starts, Hellebuyck was 2-5, gave up 21 goals and was pulled twice — though one of those was a mercy pull by head coach Paul Maurice when the Jets weren’t ready to face the Carolina Hurricanes.
Whether the decline in play was due to being overworked or simply because the team in front of him was struggling, Hellebuyck was sent down after Pavelec returned to full health and remained in the minors for the remainder of the season.
Pavelec played well down the stretch, but the Jets were already eliminated from playoff contention. The Czech netminder is entering the final season of his fiveyear, $19.5-million contract and he knows he’s in a battle to stave off the competition, so you can expect he’ll be ready to perform at his best once he returns from the World Cup.
And while Hutchinson was unable to take the ball and run with it and was at least temporarily bypassed by Hellebuyck on the depth chart, he also played a bit better late in the season and is hoping to return to the form that had him in contention to be an all-star game replacement in 2014-15.
Hellebuyck put up the best numbers of the trio in his 26 games last season, going 13-11-1 with a 2.34 goals-against average and .918 save percentage. He has improved steadily since turning pro and the expectation is he’s going to be ready to take over the top job before long. Will that be to start the season? There’s no guarantee, but it says here he will. But that comes with a caveat. Don’t just hand Hellebuyck the job and expect him to be a saviour, at least not right away.
While none of the goalies may like it, the best course of action for the Jets — at least at the start of the season — is to run with some type of goalie rotation.
Whether it’s for a quarter of the season or half, that will depend on how the goalies play.
Some will certainly be skeptical a rotation can work, but it worked well during the only time in five seasons that the Jets managed to make the playoffs — and it produced the best stretch of play in the careers of both Pavelec and Hutchinson.
Hellebuyck is the future and he’s most likely the present as well, but to expect him to play 65 games in his first full NHL season is unrealistic.
Yes, he’s young and he’s a workhorse but there’s no need to risk playing him too much too soon.
Whether it’s Pavelec or Hutchinson or some combination of the two mixing in starts with Hellebuyck, it’s possible either guy (or both) could play well enough to give the Jets a chance to win when called upon and push Hellebuyck to not only be better but also fresher.
It’s the best formula for success for the franchise, at least in the short term.
He’s young and he’s a workhorse but there’s no need to risk playing him too much too soon.