Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel shared some harsh words for former franchise goaltender Connor Hellebuyck after learning he wouldn’t start against his old team when the New Jersey Devils visit Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.
For the Jets, the game was supposed to offer an opportunity for closure — and presumably lots of booing — following Hellebuyck’s bitter departure from the team. Instead, the three-time Vezina Trophy winner will watch from the sidelines, leaving his former teammates and the city’s fans with little outlet to express themselves.
“He gave up on us,” Arniel said after the team’s practice Monday. “It would be nice to finally be done with this.”
The remarks came after the Devils announced that Hellebuyck would not face Winnipeg, citing concerns that starting him could negatively affect the team’s chances of beating the Jets.
In a statement issued Sunday night, Devils general manager Sunny Mehta said the organization made the decision for Hellebuyck — despite the netminder’s supposed insistence that he wanted to play — due to “expected win probability.”
“This has been an organizational decision for us that we’ve debated at length,” Mehta wrote. “Connor Hellebuyck was adamant that he felt a duty to play on Tuesday in Winnipeg. However, in our estimation, playing in this game would potentially give us a reduction in our expected win probability. Even though Connor isn’t playing, at his request, we will coordinate a media availability after Tuesday’s morning skate at Canada Life Centre.”
Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe also pointed to Hellebuyck’s recent workload, including three starts in six nights, as justification for playing second fiddle. However, Keefe also acknowledged that the potentially hostile homecoming factored into the organization’s thinking.
For Arniel, that explanation has done little to soften the disappointment.
“I’ve seen a lot of analytics in my life since it’s really come into the forefront; I’m not sure how this works into the analytics part of it,” Arniel quipped.
The Jets endured a contentious summer after Hellebuyck requested a trade and subsequently failed to report for training camp, resulting in a suspension. His eventual departure ended an 11-season tenure that included three Vezina Trophies, a Hart Trophy, and 345 regular-season victories.
“I’m not frustrated. I’m not. As soon as I saw the announcement — it happened in some other situations already this year and dealt with,” Arniel said, referring to Brady Tkachuk‘s return to Ottawa and Dylan Larkin‘s chilly reception in Detroit. “[The Devils] have their reasonings and it’s fine.
“To me, it goes back to the ownership. It goes back to the fans. It goes back to the core guys that have been with Helly from the very beginning that he kind of left on. That’s the part for me that’s hard… All it does is drags it out to 9 or 10 more games from now. We’re going to have to start into it and talk about it again here. So that’s the biggest disappointment for me.”
The Jets will play the Devils again on November 28 at Prudential Center in New Jersey.
Arniel wasn’t the only one to express disappointment at losing the chance to face Hellebuyck.
“I would have loved to play against him. We’d all be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to the opportunity,” Jets captain Adam Lowry said.
“Like I said countless times, he’s a good friend of ours, and it’s always fun going up against buddies and ex-teammates; you just want to beat him, and I think the atmosphere would have been great whether fans were upset or they wanted to thank him, whatever. It would have been an emotional night, and it would have been a lot of fun.”
Kyle Connor was shocked by the decision, saying, “I honestly didn’t even think [not starting] was a possibility. I was pretty surprised.”
Connor added that there’s been no communication on Hellebuyck’s side and that he didn’t feel any relief not facing him.
“No, I think we all hoped he was playing,” he said.
Since being traded to New Jersey on October 23, Hellebuyck is undefeated in five starts, including a 23-save shutout against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday. His early run includes a 1.96 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage.
“I’m not going to speak for what Helly owes and what he – at the end of the day, I think that we just want to get this game over and done with and play them, let the fans react how they were going to react,” Arniel said. “We just had to go out and, you know, get our two points. And if it was against him, well, it’s going to be Jake Allen now. So really it’s – I don’t care about his opinion on things. I just wanted this to kind of end.
“This has been, like I said, this has been throughout the summer. It’s been through our training camp. It’s all the way led up to the trade, and now it’s continuing on. And I was kind of hoping that it would be done after tomorrow night.”
