Winnipeg Jets: Could Connor Hellebuyck Be Back On Track?

With a good game from Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck against New York, we could shortly see him returning to the same netminder we saw last season.

The Winnipeg Jets are on a roll. After coming out of the gates with a slow start, we’ve finally begun to find our footing. Our goaltending has been a bit rough, however after watching the past few games from Laurent Brossoit (Laurent isn’t really the one having a rough season) and Connor Hellebuyck‘s last start, we seem to be going in the right direction.

After our game against the New York Islanders, head coach Paul Maurice wasn’t shy in the press conference, praising the performance of our young Connor Hellebuyck. Not only did Maurice notice a good performance, but so did Isles forward Anders Lee:

"“We had some really good opportunities to score and Hellebuyck kept a lot of them out. Credit to him on those, but for the most part we did play a pretty good game.”"

This is what Hellebuyck needed. To be quite honest, he wasn’t looking confident in net a few games ago, but this here is the confidence he needed desperately. It’s a very positive thing for his mental game. As we know from previous goaltenders such as Steve Mason, being in a good mental state for hockey is unbelievably important. It’s probably equal to or more important than the physical game.

It hasn’t quite been Hellebuyck’s best season, especially not compared to last year’s unbelievable campaign. His stats aren’t very appealing, with a save percentage of .904 and a goals against average of 2.97. Not to worry though Jets fans, there’s still plenty of time to turn this around.

So as we’ve seen, Connor has allowed letting up weaker goals to slip into his game. Last season, this was almost entirely eliminated. However, coming off a big win against New York, Hellebuyck could be onto something. He has won his last three and the confidence is back like I said earlier.

Honestly, I really like Hellebuyck and it’s tough to see a guy like him struggle. Paul Maurice has done a great job of not giving up on him. As Tuesday’s game showed, it paid off.

Maybe a few more good performances out of him is all we need to get him rolling again. Perfect timing, seeing as that we’re beginning our rise back up the standings. We currently are sixth place among the entire league.

Our next look at him will likely be against St. Louis tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see whether he can keep the trend going.