Connor Hellebuyck Is a Devil: Jets Trade the Hart-Winning Goalie to New Jersey in a Six-Piece Blockbuster

Connor Hellebuyck never reported to Winnipeg this fall. On Friday, the Jets made sure he never has to. Winnipeg traded the most decorated goaltender in franchise history to the New Jersey Devils, ending a standoff that ran from a private request in the summer to a public one in August, a training-camp no-show and an unpaid team suspension — and it ended on the very day the suspension was set to expire, with Hellebuyck expected back in the Jets' room.

Going east is a 33-year-old with a Hart Trophy, three Vezina Trophies and an Olympic gold medal. Coming back: forwards Dawson Mercer and Nick Bjugstad, goaltender Nico Daws, the rights to unsigned 18-year-old Alexander Command — the No. 12 pick in June's draft — plus New Jersey's own second-round pick in 2029 and seventh-round pick in 2027. Six pieces for one goaltender. By the standards of goalie trades, that is a haul.

How the Standoff Ended

Hellebuyck asked out quietly first. “Several months ago, I privately requested a trade,” he said in a statement on Aug. 27. “I have tried to handle the situation quietly and respectfully while giving the organization time to explore its options… My position has not changed, and I believe moving on is the best path forward for me and my family.” When camp opened, he wasn't there. The Jets suspended him — unpaid, per Sportsnet — beginning Sept. 16, and the suspension was scheduled to run out Friday, with the goalie expected to report.

This was not the first attempt to end it. A bid to move him in June failed, per NBC Sports, and the standoff grew thorny enough to require the involvement of the league and the Players' Association. Jets captain Adam Lowry said Saturday that if Hellebuyck rejoined the team, “conversations are going to have to happen.” As recently as the weekend, the Jets felt the offers they were getting were terrible, per ESPN's Emily Kaplan — then talks progressed Thursday night, and by Friday the deal was done. Nobody has to have those conversations now.

What the Devils Are Getting

At his peak, Hellebuyck is the best goaltender on the planet, and the peak is recent. In 2024-25 he went 47-12-3 with a league-best 2.00 goals-against average, a .925 save percentage and eight shutouts, backstopped Winnipeg to the Presidents' Trophy and won the Hart and the Vezina in the same spring — only the eighth goaltender in history to win both. This past February he took Team USA to Olympic gold in Milan-Cortina, going 5-0 with a 1.18 goals-against average and a .956 save percentage, making 41 saves in the 2-1 overtime win over Canada and taking best-goaltender honors. For his career: 345-208-55 with a 2.58 goals-against average, a .916 save percentage and 45 shutouts in 625 games — and since his 2015-16 debut, no goaltender has played more minutes or recorded more shutouts.

The honest fine print: last season was the worst of his 11. Hellebuyck went 23-23-11 with a career-low .895 save percentage and no shutouts for the first time, and Winnipeg missed the playoffs. He also hasn't played a game this season — he has been skating on his own in Michigan while the talks dragged, per NBC Sports — so his debut date is an open question. New Jersey is betting the down year was the exception in a metronome of a career, and that the break did him more good than harm.

The need, at least, is not in doubt. The Devils opened the season with Daws and Jake Allen in net, and the pair combined for an .880 save percentage that ranked 23rd of 32 teams — this after new general manager Sunny Mehta said at camp he was comfortable with his goaltending. The results argued otherwise. Now Hellebuyck joins a 6-4-0 team built around Jack Hughes — the man whose overtime goal won that Olympic final with Hellebuyck standing in the American net — and the Devils have announced, as loudly as a trade can announce it, that they are done waiting.

What Winnipeg Gets — and What It Says

Mercer is the everyday piece: 24 years old, a $4 million cap hit, a restricted free agent next July, and as durable as forwards come — he has played all 82 games in each of his first five seasons and scored between 17 and 27 goals in every one of them. He is off to a slow start (no goals, four assists in 10 games), but Winnipeg is buying the five-year track record, not the 10-game sample. Command might be the prize: an 18-year-old Swedish center the Devils took 12th overall in June, whose rights now belong to the Jets, with 12 points in six games in Sweden's junior league this fall. Daws, 25, sends a young NHL goaltender back the other way — 59 career games, signed through 2027-28 at $1.1 million — in the deal that takes Winnipeg's starter away. Bjugstad, 34, is on long-term injured reserve with a torn pectoral muscle that will cost him four to six months and is a free agent after the season; his role in this trade is the money and the roster math, not October hockey.

Read the whole return one more time and the message is clear. On paper the Jets had no leverage: a goaltender who would not play for them, holding a full no-movement clause that let him choose his destination, on a contract that pays him $8.5 million a year through 2030-31. They refused the early offers anyway, let the suspension clock run to its final day, and landed a six-piece return. The cost is real — 11 seasons in Winnipeg, every one of them Hellebuyck's, walk out the door with him — but as exits from a superstar standoff go, this is about as well as a team in Winnipeg's position could play it.

What's Next

For New Jersey: a contender's crease, filled. Hellebuyck is in the third year of his seven-year deal, so this is a five-more-seasons commitment after this one, and the Devils' season now runs through him — whenever the Michigan skating sessions turn into a first start. Circle Nov. 10, when the Devils play in Winnipeg: there will be a video tribute, and it will be complicated. For the Jets, the page turns immediately — they host the Heritage Classic against Montreal on Sunday, 48 hours after trading the face of their crease — and the net Hellebuyck owned for a decade has a new name in its mix — the 25-year-old who arrived in this very trade.