Connor Hellebuyck was in purgatory, and now he's living it up in Hell. It sounds like he preferred both to Winnipeg. After 11 seasons with the Jets, the three-time Vezina-winning goalie played his first game for another NHL team, earning a win for the New Jersey Devils in Dallas on Tuesday night.
Hellebuyck got to the States by forcing his way out of Manitoba, and the 33-year-old's status as the President's favorite player, a playoff choker, and a possible tender-in-decline as he comes off his worst season since the beginning of his career all serve to temper the excitement of his move to Jersey. But goalie was a hole that the Devils desperately needed filled, and the modest package they sent in return—basically the 20-goal scorer Dawson Mercer and the kid they drafted 12th overall this year, Alexander Command—means they should be a better team right away.
The pressure is certainly on Jersey to show some real improvement. After a promising first-round playoff win over the Rangers in 2023—their first series win since advancing to the Stanley Cup Final in 2012—a mix of injuries and plateaued youngsters have kept the Devils from making any real noise. It was supposed to be a new era for Jersey when Jack Hughes and his fellow kids broke out, but so far the team's most important players have yet to prove they can lead a contender. However, there are reasons to be optimistic about their depth, if not their top-end talent. Raiding Nashville for the all-around solid Luke Evangelista, who's still got a high ceiling at just 24, was perhaps my favorite move of the offseason, while another winger, rookie Amadeus Lombardi, is one of my top newcomers to watch for reasons that are only about 80 percent related to his name. (His siblings are Symphony and Ulysses, by the way.) The most glaring weakness has been in goal, with Jacob Markström failing to be the answer in the last two seasons. So the buyck stops here.
With the Devils at full strength and Hellebuyck in goal on Tuesday, it was hard to see them as anything but a serious threat. The skaters made it very simple for the new arrival, building out a 3-0 lead in the game's first half while severely limiting Dallas's opportunities to score. Even though the Stars' fairly flukey second-period deflection goal served as a slight speed bump, the road team still cruised to a 5-1 victory. Hellebuyck showed no rust despite his lengthy separation from Winnipeg, during which he was working out in Michigan under less-than-ideal conditions, and his 17 saves were more than enough for the Jersey boys' fourth straight win. All of them on this mini-streak have come fairly decisively in regulation, and the Devils are now 8-4-0 on the year.
"I thought the guys in front of me played a perfect game for me to get acclimated. A low amount of shots, blocking everything, keeping everything to the outside. They let me touch the puck a lot," the goalie said in the postgame. "You can practice touching it and feeling good with the hands, but it’s all about immediate decisions, checking and having a play already picked before you even get the puck. So, I touched it as many times as I could just to work through it.”
“For sure our worst game of the season,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “But they were good, too."
Hellebuyck is adjusting socially as well as physically to his new workplace. Per The Athletic, on just two hours' notice he made it to his new team's Halloween party in Hoboken, wearing an ATM outfit—likely a reference to the fact that he was missing his paychecks while he sat out.
“He not only seems like he’s in midseason form but seems like he’s been here a long time,” Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said. “He’s got a tremendous level of confidence, for good reason: He’s earned that.”
Meanwhile, with career minor leaguer Clay Stevenson in net (though that is definitely not the only issue), the Jets lost their sixth straight on Tuesday, falling 5-1 at home to the Panthers. They'll welcome the Devils to their rink very soon, with "Screw You, Connor" night scheduled for Nov. 10.
