You don’t need to own a Winchester dress shirt to be intimately familiar with the concept of “buy low, sell high.” Hockey teams are collections of assets, and managing those assets is no different from managing a stock portfolio.
Connor Hellebuyck is not just a starting goalie. He is a franchise pillar, a Vezina-calibre difference-maker, and the kind of player who can change the direction of a season almost by himself. That is why trading him at a relative “high” seems apocryphal. I disagree. As previously mentioned, 33-year-old goaltenders have a spotty track record when it comes to aging gracefully.
Put aside the likelihood of this happening — if the Winnipeg Jets moved him, the deal would need to bring back draft capital and, ideally, a young centreman or prospect who could become part of the team’s next core.
With that in mind, here are five teams that make sense as potential trade partners, along with the kind of return Winnipeg might look to unearth:
1. Detroit Red Wings
Steve Yzerman was recently quoted as saying, “We need better players.” Hellebuyck is, by definition, a better player.
Positives: PuckPedia shows Detroit with more than $11 million in projected cap space, which matters because acquiring Hellebuyck is not just a hockey decision; it is a cap decision as well.
Negatives: Detroit already made a major goaltending move when it acquired John Gibson from Anaheim at the 2025 Draft, sending out a 2027 second-round pick and a 2026 fourth-rounder. Gibson played well, but not great, this year, so that does not eliminate Detroit as a fit, but it does change the logic.
Possible return:
• Nate Danielson — a centreman taken ninth overall in the 2023 Draft. Danielson has played only 28 somewhat forgettable NHL games, so he is far from a sure thing, but he is the kind of player the Jets should gamble on.
• Trey Augustine — a goaltender drafted 41st overall in the 2023 Draft. He is widely recognized as a top goalie prospect and backstopped the U.S. World Junior team this year.
• 2027 first-round pick?
Likelihood: This would be a bold swing from Detroit, but it would also be the kind of package Winnipeg should demand. Although Detroit is an up-and-coming team, I question whether it is at the stage of acquiring a win-now asset like Hellebuyck. I further question whether the 2027 first-round pick in this deal is realistic in this market.
2. Philadelphia Flyers
If the Jets want futures, Philadelphia makes a great deal of sense.
Positives: The Flyers have the kind of draft capital that can anchor a blockbuster, and they also have a prospect pool with enough intrigue to make a deal worth discussing. Philadelphia is still building, but there may come a point when the organization decides that solving the goaltending position is the fastest way to accelerate the process.
Negatives: Dan Vladar is having a career year following four mediocre seasons with the Calgary Flames. The Flyers are also close to advancing to the second round of the playoffs, so it remains to be seen how far they go this year. If Vladar falls on his face, this is where Hellebuyck becomes appealing.
Possible return:
• Porter Martone — the Flyers’ sixth-overall pick in the 2025 Draft. He is a power forward with good hands and playmaking ability, and a very solid right winger all around.
• 2027 first-round pick?
• Alex Bump — a fifth-round pick in 2022. I just like Bump’s game. He played sparingly this season as a fourth-line forward, but he is a terrific depth piece with middle-six potential.
Likelihood: Again, this all might be a bit rich, but some variation of it could be possible. I like both Martone and Bump, so perhaps that is enough. Martone played 15 games to close the season and into the playoffs - and has been excellent - so he could be playing his way into untouchability. It would definitely inject life into an aging Jets forward core. This kind of trade would not necessarily bring back a young centerpiece down the middle, but it would give Winnipeg a strong futures haul.
3. New Jersey Devils
The New Jersey Devils may want to accelerate their win-now potential with a win-now fit.
Positives: The Devils have built a talented core, but every contender eventually reaches the same question: Is the goaltending good enough to win when the games matter most? The answer for New Jersey this year is assuredly “no.” Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen do not appear to be the answer, so the need is there.
Negatives: According to Elite Prospects, the Devils are not especially deep on the prospect front, so they may believe they are still a few years away from true contention.
Possible return:
• Mikhail Yegorov — drafted 49th overall in 2024, Yegorov is a promising goaltender prospect, although he had a bit of a down year in the AHL in 2025–26.
• Anton Silayev — do you miss Logan Stanley already? How about a Russian version without the rigor mortis in his arms and legs? Silayev has a dynamic skill set for a man standing 6-foot-7, and if developed properly, he will be a very good defenceman in the league.
• 2027 first-round pick?
Likelihood: Again, New Jersey is not a deep team, so they might still be a year away from being a year away. Silayev would be the headline piece here, giving Winnipeg a premium young defenseman to build around. The Jets defensive core that includes Dylan DeMelo and Neal Pionk needs a 'refresh', and this trade would help set the reset button on the back-end.
4. Buffalo Sabres
If the Jets want a young centreman as a major part of the return, Buffalo is an interesting option.
Positives: The Sabres have spent years building up young talent, and they have the kind of prospect pool that could make a centre-driven deal possible. If Buffalo ever decided it was done waiting for the crease to sort itself out internally, Hellebuyck would be the kind of move that could immediately raise expectations.
Negatives: Buffalo went 27-9-4 down the stretch and are in pole position to advance to the second round of the playoffs. They might view an asset trade such as this as unnecessary given their ascendance.
Possible return:
• Konsta Helenius — drafted 11th overall in 2024, Helenius is viewed by NHL.com as Buffalo’s top prospect. A mid-sized forward who plays in all three zones and has a high hockey IQ sounds good to me.
• 2026 first-round pick and 2027 first-round pick.
Likelihood: Buffalo is loaded at forward, and Hellebuyck has already embraced a small-market team, so his hesitation should be minimal given the Sabres trajectory. Helenius is enough of a wildcard where I would want to see multiple picks at play.
5. Los Angeles Kings
The Kings were swept handily by the Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Positives: The Kings have made the playoffs in five consecutive years, with first-round exits each time. They may be looking to add free agents this summer and finally get over the proverbial hump.
Negatives: The Kings just lost Anze Kopitar and have been rumoured to be on the brink of a rebuild for years. They already have an aging goalie in Darcy Kuemper, but they also have three fairly coveted goalies in the pipeline, with Carter George, Erik Portillo, and Hampton Slukynsky all looking like legitimate options.
Possible return:
• Quinton Byfield — he is young, talented, already established at the NHL level, and still has room to grow. He is under a team friendly contract until 2029 and is a perfect fit for the Jets second line.
• 2026 first-round pick (or a goalie prospect)
Likelihood: The problem, of course, is that Byfield is also exactly the type of player the Kings would hate to lose. That makes this one of the most intriguing ideas on paper, but also one of the hardest to pull off in reality. The good news is that Byfield does not have a no movement clause in his contract, and Hellebuyck would likely not object to moving to the Sunshine State.
Final Thought
Mileage may vary on the market for Hellebuyck. That statement offers a circular feedback loop of justification for a trade: his value will only go down from here.
The elephant in the room is that Hellebuyck has a full no-movement clause in his contract, making an already speculative exercise even more speculative. There are also teams like the Edmonton Oilers that seem like ideal trade partners, but are pressed against the cap and have already traded away their 2026 and 2027 first-round picks.
Trading Connor Hellebuyck would be painful for Jets fans. Players like him do not come around often, and moving a cornerstone piece of the team feels like a step backward. In many ways, it would be. But that should not prevent the Winnipeg Jets from exploring every measure that could keep this team from being saddled with a nucleus of depreciating assets. Fortune favors the bold.
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