Winnipeg Is 4-1-1 Without Hellebuyck. That Changes Less Than It Seems.

Winnipeg was supposed to be the team falling apart this October. Connor Hellebuyck asked for a trade, made the request public in September when no deal came, and was suspended for refusing to report to training camp. He has not played a game. The Jets are 4-1-1 anyway, with nine points from six games, and they beat Minnesota 5-2 on Tuesday.

The easy conclusion is that Winnipeg has found out it does not need him. The numbers point somewhere more useful. The goaltending without Hellebuyck has been fine, the special teams have been brilliant, and Kyle Connor is shooting the lights out. At five-on-five, where most of a season is decided, the Jets have been one of the weaker teams in the league again.

How has the crease held up without Hellebuyck?

Better than anyone in Winnipeg feared. Stuart Skinner has started four games, gone 3-0-1 and stopped 110 of 120 shots for a .917 save percentage. By MoneyPuck's model he has saved 3.3 goals more than an average goaltender would have on the same shots. Clay Stevenson, claimed off waivers from Washington in late September, has split two starts, a 3-2 win in Pittsburgh and a 5-1 loss to Anaheim in which he allowed four goals on 16 shots.

The table carries the most important point about last season. Hellebuyck's .895 was the first sub-.900 year of his career, and it came one season after a .925 that won him the Vezina and the Hart. Yet by expected goals he was still 5.5 goals better than average, because the chances Winnipeg allowed in front of him were that dangerous. Skinner tells the same story from a season split between Edmonton and Pittsburgh: an .888 save percentage, and 8.3 goals saved above expected. Both men were better than their numbers looked, and both were playing behind teams that gave up a lot.

As a group, the Winnipeg goaltenders are 2.7 goals above expected through six games, 11th in the league. It is good enough, which was the whole question.

Is the rest of the start real?

Some of it is. Winnipeg's special teams have carried the record. The power play is converting 31.2 per cent of its chances, fourth in the league, and it is creating 9.4 expected goals per 60 minutes of five-on-four play, sixth. The penalty kill has allowed one goal on 13 chances. Cole Perfetti has five goals and five power-play points, and Connor's seven goals have him tied for second in the NHL, one behind Kirill Kaprizov.

The five-on-five play is the worry, because it looks a lot like last season.

The Jets are being outshot, outchanced and, in the slot, out-numbered by more than two to one. That is the profile of the team that fell from 116 points to 82 last season, a drop we called the largest collapse of the salary cap era.

How much of this is Kyle Connor?

A lot. Connor has seven goals on 30 shots, and his shots have been worth 3.7 expected goals, so he is 3.3 goals ahead of what an average finisher would have scored. Perfetti is 2.3 ahead. Together those two account for 12 of Winnipeg's 18 goals. Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi have one goal between them from 3.96 expected goals.

Connor is a genuinely elite shooter, and we argued in August that he is the player Winnipeg should build around. But nobody scores on 23 per cent of his shots for long, and when Connor cools down the Jets need the five-on-five game to hold up on its own. Right now it would not.

What should Winnipeg do with Hellebuyck now?

Hold the price. The early weeks have answered the question that was supposed to force Kevin Cheveldayoff's hand, which was whether the Jets could survive in net without their starter. They can, at least for a while. Skinner was above expected last season and is above it again, and that buys Winnipeg time it did not have in September.

What the Jets still lack is exactly what a Hellebuyck trade should bring back: forwards and a defenceman who can tilt five-on-five play. Reported interest from Buffalo, Carolina and Utah has never produced an offer Winnipeg considered fair. A 4-1-1 record does not make him less valuable to those teams, and it means the Jets no longer have to accept the first one that arrives. We said in August that Buffalo should let somebody else overpay. Winnipeg's job is to make sure somebody does.

The case for keeping Hellebuyck, stated fairly

The argument for patience on the player, as opposed to the price, goes like this. Hellebuyck is under contract at $8.5 million through 2030-31, he was still above expected in his worst season, and goaltenders this good are rarely available at all. Suspensions end, relationships have been repaired before, and a team that is 4-1-1 with a backup-calibre tandem would be a real contender with a three-time Vezina winner behind it. Trading him for futures while the team is winning would be a strange way to rebuild.

The other side is that he asked to leave, took the request public when no deal came, and refused to report. Every month he sits is a month of value gone for both sides, and a .917 Skinner is the best possible moment to sell, because the people who might ask whether Winnipeg can live without him now have six games of evidence.

What Winnipeg should want from Hellebuyck now is the return he can bring, the players who would make the Jets good at five-on-five, and that is still the deal worth waiting for.

What to watch

Skinner's next ten starts and Connor's shooting percentage, in that order. If Skinner stays above .905 and the five-on-five share climbs toward 48 per cent, Winnipeg has a real team and leverage in talks. If both slide, the trade gets more urgent and the return gets smaller. Every Jets number is on the team stats page, and the race is on the standings.

Correction, October 15, 2026: An earlier version of this article attributed Stuart Skinner's full 2025-26 line (50 games, .888, +8.3) to Pittsburgh alone. He played 23 games for Edmonton and 27 for Pittsburgh after a midseason trade, and the figures cover both stints.