This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Connor Hellebuyck
Winnipeg Jets Goaltender
Forty-seven wins, a .9249, eight shutouts, and thirty-two goals of goaltending — the best figure in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | W | L | OTL | GA | GAA | SO | SA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | WPG | 26 | 13 | 11 | 1 | 56 | 2.34 | 2 | 683 | .918 |
| 2016-17 | WPG | 56 | 26 | 19 | 4 | 146 | 2.89 | 4 | 1572 | .907 |
| 2017-18 | WPG | 67 | 44 | 11 | 9 | 156 | 2.36 | 6 | 2048 | .924 |
| 2018-19 | WPG | 63 | 34 | 23 | 3 | 179 | 2.90 | 2 | 2051 | .913 |
| 2019-20 | WPG | 58 | 31 | 21 | 5 | 140 | 2.57 | 6 | 1796 | .922 |
| 2020-21 | WPG | 45 | 24 | 17 | 3 | 112 | 2.58 | 4 | 1335 | .916 |
| 2021-22 | WPG | 66 | 29 | 27 | 10 | 193 | 2.97 | 4 | 2155 | .910 |
| 2022-23 | WPG | 64 | 37 | 25 | 2 | 157 | 2.49 | 4 | 1964 | .920 |
| 2023-24 | WPG | 60 | 37 | 19 | 4 | 142 | 2.39 | 5 | 1798 | .921 |
| 2024-25 | WPG | 63 | 47 | 12 | 3 | 125 | 2.00 | 8 | 1664 | .925 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 568 | 322 | 185 | 44 | 1406 | 2.56 | 45 | 17066 | .918 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
47-12-3 in 63 games with a .9249, a 2.00 average and 8 shutouts, facing 1,664 shots. He won the Vezina and the Hart Trophy, and the club won the Presidents’ Trophy.
The club’s goaltending came in 32.0 goals better than the chances faced, 1st in the league by a distance. At five-on-five it conceded 114 goals against an expectation of 146. That is the season, and there is no second explanation for it.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 207 and he plays deeper than almost anybody at this level. He sets in the crease, he does not chase the shot out, and he lets the frame do the work — the puck finds him rather than the other way round.
The rebound control is the best in the league and it is the whole method. He absorbs what he can and directs the rest to the corner, and a club that concedes 32 fewer goals than its chances is a club that is not defending second shots. He tracks pucks through traffic as well as anybody in the sport. The puck-handling is adequate and no more.
The Mental Game
Ten seasons, 568 games and a .9176, on a club that has been good, average and bad in that time and has never once been carried by anything but him.
He had been given the Vezina twice before and had never been past the second round. He is the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy in a decade. He is also the goaltender who has repeatedly been the best player in the league in October and something less in May, and that file is now the entire conversation about him.
The Intangibles
A fifth-round pick in 2012 — 130th overall — out of a Michigan high-school programme and UMass Lowell, and 322 career wins.
He is 32 and has played more than 60 games in seven separate seasons. Nobody in this edition is more important to his club than he is to this one, and it is not a close question.