Connor Hellebuyck - Worst Playoff Goalie in NHL history

[Daximus]

Jets should look to trade him this off season.

I don't think we can. We won't get anything special and we have nothing to replace him. We also don't have the luxury of being a premier destination. For better or worse we got him, he's better than any other goalie we have had, he's gotten us further than any other goalie we've had.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

For some strange reason, people have forgotten about how Hellebuyck played in the playoffs before 2023. It has to be psychological. I just do not understand it. In 2018, 19, and 21 he was fine. He even played amazing in the 2018 and 2021 playoffs, with the same amount of games played.

I also think that it's in the team's head to some extent and they're trying to overcompensate, which makes it all worse.

When I played in college, a combination of dry eye syndrome and the lack of humidity in our home rink meant that I would sometimes have games where my contact lenses weren't working as well as they could be. I would actually have pretty good games because it forced me to mentally focus better, but one thing I learned was to not let my defensemen know that I was having contact lens issues.

When I'd tell my team - even passively - they would invariably say "oh, I've got to do Bear's job too", and they would block shots they shouldn't be blocking, try to make an extra hit and end up out of position, and just generally play riskier than they would if I'd shut my mouth. And so the other team would get better opportunities, I'd allow more goals, and this would feed into that preconceived notion (so it would get worse the next time).

 

[GMR]

I don't think we can. We won't get anything special and we have nothing to replace him. We also don't have the luxury of being a premier destination. For better or worse we got him, he's better than any other goalie we have had, he's gotten us further than any other goalie we've had.

We'll take him just so we can make the playoffs.

Who gives a shit what happens when we get there?

 

[M88K]

Jets should look to trade him this off season.

He might be bad in the PO, but without him the Jets don't get to the PO

 

[Mr Nogatco]

When I played in college, a combination of dry eye syndrome and the lack of humidity in our home rink meant that I would sometimes have games where my contact lenses weren't working as well as they could be. I would actually have pretty good games because it forced me to mentally focus better,

Funny how that works out, some of my best games were when I played injured/sick/hungover. Shows how much of the game is mental

 

[WATTAGE4451]

He wasnt great in the gold medal game.

He hasn't been great at home either except for 1 game lmao

2 Actually. He also had a 1 goal performance vs the blues, albeit only 22 shots.

 

[WATTAGE4451]

He’s got a shutout and 3 weak to really bad performances. Some of the goals are 2013 Fleury esque. He shouldn’t be playing but coach doesn’t have the stones to make that call. In many playoff runs it’s absolutely necessary to play your other goalie. But the Jets too often are the get along gang because they are afraid to alienate personalities, rightly or wrongly

I dont think he was terrible in games 1 and 4, but he definitely didnt greatly help their chances of winning like otter did for dallas. He certainly didnt look like a vezina winner but just like he wasnt fully to blame for the losses.

 

[WATTAGE4451]

I think its mental. He happened to suck vs vegas and the narrative formed and now he just cant get the pressure of choking out of his head.

 

[WATTAGE4451]

He might be bad in the PO, but without him the Jets don't get to the PO

This year the jets were good enough to make postseason without him, albeit not president trophy winners. But they also get a lot of cap space without him too

 

[Mr Nogatco]

This year the jets were good enough to make postseason without him, albeit not president trophy winners. But they also get a lot of cap space without him too

Yeah but you’re gonna end up spending around $8M on a good tandem anyway if you go the UFA route, unless you roll the dice on guys who aren’t established yet. But for every Stolarz there’s 5+ Samsonov’s

 

[MrHeiskanen]

And this is the problem with the Jets. You have a clear weakness, the same goalie can not perform in the playoffs 3 years in a row. This is not some 2-3 game skid where people are overreacting on a short sample size. This is 20+ games of horrible play.

Rather than moving on from this issue, they will continue to come up with excuses, refuse to move on from the player, and they will never win anything because of it.

 

[bleedthenorth]

if Hellebuyck is so bad, how is Dallas unable to average more than 3 goals per game on him?

 

[WolfgangPuck]

Maybe it’s time to consider tandem goaltenders in the playoffs to ease the pressure . How many goalies have played every single playoff game for their team all the way to the Stanley Cup win?

 

[Summer Rose]

Maybe it’s time to consider tandem goaltenders in the playoffs to ease the pressure . How many goalies have played every single playoff game for their team all the way to the Stanley Cup win?

Uhh... a lot of them. I would even say most of them. Sergei Bobrovsky did it last year if I'm not reading the stats wrong (16-8 playoff record, which matches Florida's 16-8 playoff record).

 

[IronHookem]

He might be bad in the PO, but without him the Jets don't get to the PO

If they replace him with Georgiev, sure. Any semi-decent goalie could still lead this team to a playoff spot.

 

[WolfgangPuck]

Uhh... a lot of them. I would even say most of them. Sergei Bobrovsky did it last year if I'm not reading the stats wrong (16-8 playoff record, which matches Florida's 16-8 playoff record).

Vegas win the Stanley Cup the year prior with three goaltenders starting Im sure. So it’s not uncommon

 

[Summer Rose]

Vegas win the Stanley Cup the year prior with three goaltenders Im sure. So it’s not uncommon

True, but they had a bunch of goalies go down with injuries. I think I can comfortably say that most teams who have won the cup went into the playoffs with the strategy being to play the same guy in net all the way. Sometimes it gets derailed by a guy getting hurt, or getting lit up one game so you insert another guy the next game to settle him down. If it happens regularly you're probably just going to get eliminated instead of win the cup, but Vegas got away with it. Colorado the year before got away with it by having to play Francouz in place of Kuemper for a few games when he had that eye injury.

I do know of some examples where a team did not have that strategy entering the playoffs, but of the two I have in mind, neither won the cup. In 2003, Minnesota was generally alternating starts between Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson. The Bruins swapped back and forth between Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman recently.

I'll go back a bit for my own curiosity, so maybe I'll prove myself wrong as I do it, but I'm not sure if it'll make me budge from believing that the cup champion was at least trying to run the same goalie for the entirety of the playoffs, and only didn't because the plan got derailed.

Tampa Bay 2021: Andrei Vasilevskiy played all 23 playoff games.
Tampa Bay 2020: Andre Vasilevskiy played all 25 playoff games.
St. Louis 2019: Jordan Binnington started all 26 playoff games, but Jake Allen got an appearance in relief.
Washington 2018: Braden Holtby got 22 starts and a relief appearance. Philipp Grubauer got 2 starts (yanked in one of them).
Pittsburgh 2017: Marc-Andre Fleury had 15 starts (yanked in one). Matt Murray had 10 starts and one relief appearance.
Pittsburgh 2016: Matt Murray had 21 starts. Jeff Zatkoff had 2 starts. Marc-Andre Fleury had one start and one relief appearance.
Chicago 2015: Corey Crawford and Scott Darling had 19 and 4 starts respectively, and one relief appearance each.
Los Angeles 2014: Jonathan Quick started all 26 games. Martin Jones made two relief appearances.
Chicago 2013: Corey Crawford played all 23 games.
Los Angeles 2012: Jonathan Quick played all 20 games.
Boston 2011: Tim Thomas played all 25 games.
(the site I'm looking at no longer gives information on GP/starts, so it's GP only from here)
Chicago 2010: Antti Niemi 22, Cristobal Huet 1
Pittsburgh 2009: Marc-Andre Fleury 24, Mathieu Garon 1
Detroit 2008: Chris Osgood 19, Dominik Hasek 4
Anaheim 2007: Jean-Sebastian Giguere 18, Ilya Bryzgalov 5
Carolina 2006: Cam Ward 23, Martin Gerber 6 (this one does indicate Gerber as being 1-1 resulting in 4 non-decisions)
Nobody 2005: Nobody 0
Tampa Bay 2004: Nikolai Khabibulin 23, John Grahame 1 (this one does indicate that Grahame came in after Khabibulin got yanked)
New Jersey 2003: Martin Brodeur 24, Corey Schwab 2 (both in relief)
Detroit 2002: Dominik Hasek 23, Manny Legace 1 (relief appearance)

I didn't watch hockey prior to 01-02 so I'll stop. I think I can conclude that it's not common strategy. I can speak for 2007 in that I remember Bryzgalov getting into games because Giguere was unavailable due to a personal reason I don't remember, but Anaheim probably would have played him if he had been available.

Now, if you want to say that it might be a good strategy to try it, that's assuming you have two quality goaltenders, I would agree. Toronto this year with Stolarz and Woll is a good example.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

if Hellebuyck is so bad, how is Dallas unable to average more than 3 goals per game on him?

The Jets are quite good. Their goalie just chokes on the road.

 

[Jets4Life]

I don't think we can. We won't get anything special and we have nothing to replace him. We also don't have the luxury of being a premier destination. For better or worse we got him, he's better than any other goalie we have had, he's gotten us further than any other goalie we've had.

LOL

You can't be serious. There would be probably 10 teams lined up to make a trade for Hellebuyck, with good return. He is 31, and going to be a 3-time Vezina winner, with no history of injuries, and a workhorse.

Trading Helle would turn into another Rantanen debacle. With the right team, they will work with him, return Helle to his dominant self in the post-season, like he was before 2023, and lead a team to the Stanley Cup, while the Jets are stuck with Pavelec-style goaltending. Teams are notorious for seeing potential, and wanting to trade with an under-performing star. Look at the end result of what we received from the Laine trade (and then PLD). Vilardi, Iafallo, Kupari, and a draft rick.

Be careful what you wise for....

 

[Daximus]

We'll take him just so we can make the playoffs.

Who gives a shit what happens when we get there?

Easy to say for a fan of a team whose won some Cups.

 

[Summer Rose]

Easy to say for a fan of a team whose won some Cups.

My team has never won a cup (Utah/Arizona) but I'd still take Hellebuyck because he'll get you to the playoffs.

We can kick the can down the road and figure out how to actually win anything later.

 

[Daximus]

LOL

You can't be serious. There would be probably 10 teams lined up to make a trade for Hellebuyck, with good return. He is 31, and going to be a 3-time Vezina winner, with no history of injuries, and a workhorse.

Trading Helle would turn into another Rantanen debacle. With the right team, they will work with him, return Helle to his dominant self in the post-season, like he was before 2023, and lead a team to the Stanley Cup, while the Jets are stuck with Pavelec-style goaltending. Teams are notorious for seeing potential, and wanting to trade with an under-performing star. Look at the end result of what we received from the Laine trade (and then PLD). Vilardi, Iafallo, Kupari, and a draft rick.

Be careful what you wise for....

We reportedly offered him up to the league prior to him resigning and nobody made an offer.

I don't wish for us to do anything, I'd much prefer to win with him and am well aware that trading him away would likely mean he wins a Cup elsewhere because that is just our luck.

As for Laine well given what he looks like now I'd gladly take Vilardi, Iafallo, Kupari and a 2nd. So sometimes it can all still work out.

 

[Turin]

if Hellebuyck is so bad, how is Dallas unable to average more than 3 goals per game on him?

because the Jets are actually pretty good (see: 56 wins) and don't give up a ton of chances

 

[Daximus]

My team has never won a cup (Utah/Arizona) but I'd still take Hellebuyck because he'll get you to the playoffs.

We can kick the can down the road and figure out how to actually win anything later.

That was us about a decade ago. Winning a Cup is all that matters now. We've made the playoffs, we've won some rounds, we've been the best team in our division, conference and the league during the regular season, we've seen our players get individual awards. Nothing else but the Cup matters now.

 

[bleedthenorth]

because the Jets are actually pretty good (see: 56 wins) and don't give up a ton of chances

how were the Blues able to average 3.85 goals and Dallas 2.75?