The Winnipeg Jets Can’t Win without Connor Hellebuyck’s Best
The Winnipeg Jets find themselves down two games to one in the Western Conference Final. The offense has sputtered, but the main culprit sits between the pipes on game nights.
The Winnipeg Jets have lost some games, here, to the Vegas Golden Knights. Two in a row, in fact, after winning Game One in convincing fashion. Even in that victory, Connor Hellebuyck wasn’t at his best.
The Jets have rarely won games when Helly wasn’t spectacular. The team has won just one game with him having a save percentage under .900. That was against the Predators, Game Three.
The other five games where he dipped below that number all ended in defeat for his Jets. In losses, only once has he crossed that .900 threshold. That was Game Four against Nashville. So Connor Hellebuyck goes, so the team goes.
It’s quite simple, and we’ve been over it before. The other team scores a lot, the goaltender looks bad. His numbers are bad. The team loses. Very straightforward. Not a lot of room for error in the playoffs.
More from Analysis
- Winnipeg Jets vs. Blackhawks Round 3: 5 Things We learned
- Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck is the Best Goalie of the Last 5 Years
- A Patrik Laine Trade Redux Prior to Winnipeg Jets vs. Columbus
- Winnipeg Jets Doppelgangers: Look-A-Likes PART II
- Can Josh Morrissey of the Winnipeg Jets Actually Win the Norris?
Connor Hellebuyck has an .897% save percentage against Vegas in the Conference Finals. That’s how you lose hockey games, my friends.
The problem in Game Three? It wasn’t bad goaltending, per se, but Hellebuyck was out of position for the second goal.
Turnovers did him in for another. Well, technically for all three, but the second was his own turnover. Great defensive plays bought Vegas a breakway on the first goal.
As they say in sports, big time players make big time plays. Connor Hellebuyck allowed one goal that he could be considered at fault for (From a goalie standpoint, his turnover was bad, but whatever). But you have to stop the breakaways if you want to win big games.
Maybe Hellebuyck wasn’t bad in Game Three. But they needed —need— him to be great. Nashville series great. He had a .929% that series. Connor put the team on his back in Game Seven. They scored for him, yes, but he shut down the Predators.
Against Minnesota? It was .924%. Plus, consecutive shutouts in Games Four and Five to bring the series victory home. Hellebuyck was a catalyst to the Winnipeg Jets success. This team is good, no doubt. But no team can succeed with poor goaltending in the playoffs.
You might be able to steal a game here and there, but you’ll never reach the Stanley Cup Finals, let alone hoist Lord Stanley’s Mug. You need your goaltender to succeed. All the Cup winning teams have good ones. Well, maybe they have elite defenses in front of capable goalies, but still. Looking at you, Corey Crawford.
The Winnipeg Jets are in a tough spot, but not an impossible one. A win in Game Four evens the series. The Tampa Bay Lighting came back from down two games to tie it, so one game shouldn’t be too much trouble for these Jets.
Next: The Winnipeg Jets are in Trouble
Connor Hellebuyck has the men in front of him struggling for the first time this playoffs. I guess if Mark Scheifele can’t put the team on his back, the man in the net has to. He didn’t get that Vezina Finalist nod for nothing, you know.