Goalie was pulled 3 times in 1st round against Blues, says ‘you just can’t abandon your game’
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WINNIPEG — Connor Hellebuyck feels the adjustments he made to his game may have led to a drop in his performance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Winnipeg Jets goaltender struggled at times, particularly in the best-of-7 Western Conference First Round. Winnipeg went on to eliminate the St. Louis Blues in Game 7, but Hellebuyck was pulled from three games in the series. He allowed 16 goals on 66 shots in those three games (.758 save percentage).
“I think what I learned the most is you can’t overtweak your game,” Hellebuyck said on Tuesday. “You just can’t abandon your game. Maybe make some tweaks here and there, but nothing huge. Nothing drastic. And you’ve just got to go out there and have fun and realize that bad bounces do happen and sometimes, there is a little bit of a luck factor in hockey. Just trying to control that chaos.”
Hellebuyck, who is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the best goalie in the NHL, and could win it for the third time, said things settled down in his mind before the second round against the Dallas Stars. Winnipeg lost the best-of-7 series in six games, getting eliminated with a 2-1 overtime loss at Dallas on Saturday.
Hellebuyck had a 3.85 GAA and .830 save percentage in the first round but improved with a 2.20 GAA and .905 save percentage in the second round.
“The first round was a roller coaster and a mental grind,” Hellebuyck said. “Once we got through that, the weight of the world came off my shoulders and I started going back to playing my game. Everything that I was studying in the previous round started to come together back to my game. … You might be able to find some tweaks but you don’t want to find a ton of tweaks in your game. It’s one little thing here and there. You kind of ride with that for a little bit. The second you overgrip it and start overthinking, that’s when you lose your edge.”
Shutouts in Games 2 and 5 against Dallas helped Hellebuyck’s overall numbers in these playoffs (a 6-7 record, a 3.08 goals-against average and an .866 save percentage), but they were a far cry from his regular-season performance.
“If you start thinking the game and start overthinking the game, then you lose the ‘it’ factor,” Hellebuyck said. “Once I started having fun again … the level of fun that I’m accustomed to, that’s when my game got good and I just started playing. That’s what I am going to live and die by.”
DAL@WPG, Gm2: Hellebuyck blanks Stars to earn fourth postseason shutout
In the regular season, the 32-year-old was 47-12-3, led the NHL in wins, GAA (2.00) and shutouts (eight), and was second with a .925 save percentage (minimum 25 games played). He also earned his second straight William M. Jennings Trophy, presented annually to the goaltenders who play a minimum of 25 games for the team allowing the fewest goals during the regular season. The Jets allowed 191 goals (including shootout-deciding goals).
“Bad bounces happen and sometimes you just can’t control them,” Hellebuyck said. “In the playoffs, a lot of chaos happens.”
Hellebuyck helped the Jets average a League-low 2.33 goals against this season on the way to winning the Presidents’ Trophy for having the best record in the NHL (56-22-4).
“We don’t want to overtweak things because we did have a lot of success, but we have to build on that,” Hellebuyck said. “Just because we had success it doesn’t mean this team is going to sit back and say, ‘Let’s just do that.’ No. I know this team and we’re all a bunch of guys that love to learn the game and love to study the game. We’re going to take what we’ve built this year and take it to a whole new level next year.”
Had they avoided elimination, Hellebuyck and the Jets likely would have been without their top defenseman. Josh Morrissey revealed on Tuesday the left-knee injury he sustained in Game 6 against the Stars probably would have kept him out for the remainder of the postseason.
Morrissey left the game late in the second period after getting tangled up with Dallas forward Mikko Rantanen along the boards.
“No surgery — just kind of best case — but I would’ve probably been out for the rest of the playoffs, most likely,” Morrissey said. “I basically knew right away that I wouldn’t be able to [keep playing], that I was injured, and obviously felt something.”

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