Earlier this morning, Darren Dreger tweeted that trade talks for Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck were escalating and that a potential deal could indeed go down today.
As you may recall, Hellebuyck had requested a trade out of Winnipeg over the summer. The trade request went public several months later. Hellebuyck was suspended by the team after failing to report to training camp. Hellebuyck did inform the Jets a few weeks ago that he was willing to report and his suspension had been slated
to end today, although the timing of the Heritage Classic this weekend had delayed Hellebuyck from taking his physical with the organization.
That timeline of events led us to this morning, as Elliotte Friedman essentially confirmed Dreger’s report, saying that the Devils and Jets are working on a deal.
The Jets tweeted out the details of the deal and the Devils confirmed it shortly after. In exchange for Hellebuyck, the Jets would be receiving Dawson Mercer, Alexander Command, Nick Bjugstad, Nico Daws, a 2029 2nd round pick and a 2027 7th round pick from the Devils. Chris Johnston added that there is no salary retention, so the Devils will be taking on the full brunt of Hellebuyck’s contract.
What Are the Devils Getting In Hellebuyck?
Hellebuyck, 33, is in the conversation for being the best goaltender in the world.
Hellebuyck is a three-time Vezina Trophy winner, a former Hart Trophy winner as the league’s MVP, and backstopped the US Men’s Olympic Hockey team to a gold medal.
For all of the talk about how goaltending is random, that can’t really be said for Hellebuyck, who has consistently been one of the best goaltenders in the NHL since making his debut in 2015-16. Make no mistake, we are talking about a future first ballot Hall of Famer here, and that would be true if he never plays another NHL game.
But that’s all in the past. We’re concerned with what Hellebuyck will be going forward, which is tough to project.
That’s not to say that this move comes without risk. Every move has risk. Hellebuyck is 33 years old as I mentioned. He’s signed through the end of the 2030-31 season at $8.5M AAV, which isn’t that much when considering the rising cap environment we’re currently in but also isn’t nothing either. Players do decline as they get older and Hellebuyck had his first “bad” season last year with and .895 save percentage.
But even WITH that “bad year”…..he still saved 5.5 goals above expected. On a bad Jets team. In a year where he missed time with arthroscopic knee surgery, which is also arguably the first “significant” injury he’s had in his career.
And he saved 5.5 goals above expected on a bad team, which suggests the issues might’ve been what was around him more so than him and his performance.
What happens if he’s fully healthy on a good team? He’s probably closer to being the goaltender who saved over 100 goals above expected the previous three seasons, winning all sorts of accolades along the way. Even if he’s half of that, that’s better than anything the Devils have gotten in net since Cory Schneider was a Devil.
What happens if he’s motivated? He’s probably closer to the goaltender we saw in the Olympics who was, in Jack Hughes’s own words, “our best player tonight by a mile”. For as much credit as Jack has gotten for the golden goal, none of that happens without Hellebuyck’s contributions against a loaded Canadian team.
The other fly in the ointment with Hellebuyck has been his postseason track record.
Hellebuyck was excellent earlier in his career in the postseason, with a .921 save percentage from 2018-2021. But over the last three playoff runs he’s had, he has struggled with an .872 over 23 games. And there’s no sugarcoating it. That’s not good.
Hellebuyck (and the Jets) did face a Vegas team that went on to win the Stanley Cup, and Colorado and Dallas teams that are generally considered to be among the favorites to come out of the Western Conference. He also faced a St. Louis Blues team that probably isn’t very good, as least compared to the other teams I just mentioned.
The Devils will certainly need Hellebuyck to buck that trend if and when they get to the postseason. Of course, they also need to get to the postseason first, and part of the reason why they’ve failed to do so consistently over the last half decade is because they’ve gotten unstable performances in net from all sorts of players who do not possess Hellebuyck’s upside.
Hellebuyck, if nothing else, should raise the floor for Devils goaltending. With all due respect to Jake Allen and Nico Daws, they’re not Hellebuyck on their best day. Heck, they’re barely last year’s “bad” Hellebuyck on their best day. Never mind if Hellebuyck is actually still good, last year is just a blip, and it’s not what he’ll be going forward. For as risky as it is to acquire Hellebuyck, is it not as risky as asking an aging Jake Allen to play well as a starter? Or to ask relatively unproven options like Nico Daws or Remi Poirier to consistently play well? The only thing that Allen and Daws have in their favor is that they’re not expensive.
But I’m also of the mindset that I’m not really concerned with what’s going to happen in 2030-31. I’m concerned about 2026-27. I’ll worry about the “what ifs” in regards to whether or not Hellebuyck is still good in 2029 when we get there. Especially with a GM who literally just turned a bad goaltender contract into assets.
What the Devils Are Giving Up
My first thought is that this trade looks an awfully lot like the deal where the Devils acquire Timo Meier. And my big takeaway in that trade was that that deal was an awful lot of quantity, but not necessarily quality. Almost four years later, that has proven to be the case as the Sharks have moved on from just about everything they got back for Meier minus the player they used that first round pick on.
I think history will ultimately prove that this is a similar type of deal.
Let’s start with Mercer, who is the established NHL forward in this deal. Mercer, who is a winger first and foremost and an occasional center when times get desperate, is ten games into his sixth NHL season. Frankly, he looks a lot like the Dawson Mercer we’ve been accustomed to seeing the last few years with the Devils. He plays every game, which is nice, but he’s not particularly speedy or physical. He is capable of making some nice plays on both ends of the ice from time to time, but he also has a tendency to just be invisible for prolonged stretches of time. He hasn’t really shown that his breakout season in 2022-23 wasn’t an aberration. He’s also due a new contract after this season and has arbitration rights. That’s not to say that Mercer can’t have his moments. His shorthanded goal in Game 5 vs. the Rangers might be THE definitive Dawson Mercer moment. In terms of NHL pieces that could feasibly be moved though, Mercer was probably the clear choice. I don’t blame Sunny Mehta for not wanting to commit to him long-term, and for the player that Dawson Mercer is right now in 2026, he’s replaceable.
To me, the ‘get’ for Winnipeg in this trade is Alexander Command, the Devils first round pick from the past June’s entry draft. I’m a believer in Command’s upside. I think he’ll eventually be an NHL player. To what quality, who the heck knows? I don’t know that I’d view this as a sign that the Devils are already “giving up” on Command after a questionable start to his Draft +1 year. I’ll defer to James when talking about prospects but I dont know what to think about him still playing U20s as opposed to the SHL. I will say that given the Devils roster construction and organizational pipeline at this time, I prefer to give up Command rather than Mikhail Yegorov or Anton Silaev and that’s with the acknowledgement that the Devils center pipeline isn’t great. But I also have to acknowledge that you’re not getting a player like Hellebuyck for nothing but spare parts….you do have to give to get. Teams are always looking for centers when they’re making trades. Command hasn’t really done anything to diminish his value, and maybe Sunny Mehta’s intention this entire time was to flip him when the time came.
This brings me to Daws and while I do think Daws played well his last two outings against the Rangers and Ducks, I don’t think he was really asked to do much in either game other than not be the reason why they won or lost. The Devils won those games because they controlled the pace of play and didn’t allow much against them defensively. One could ask if the Devils can play like that all the time, why do you need a Connor Hellebuyck in the first place. But I doubt the Devils can indeed play like that ALL the time. This is the NHL and other teams will make pushes. I would counter this line of thinking by saying if things go sideways in a game, who would you rather have in net between Hellebuyck and Daws? To me, there’s only one correct answer there, and it’s not Daws.
And that’s basically it in terms of notable assets the Devils gave up. And 2nd round pick on a 15 year old to be named later in 2029? A seventh round pick this year? Nick Bjugstad’s expiring contract?
I don’t have to give up a first round pick (aside from the one they just used on Command)? I don’t have to give up Yegorov or Silaev or Hameenaho or any of your other favorite prospects? I don’t have to give up Arseny Gritsyuk?
Yes, ideally Winnipeg would’ve retained a little bit of salary. But this is also what the price was without paying for retention, and I don’t blame the Jets if they don’t want to retain salary for half a decade.
Given the circumstances, this deal is a no-brainer from a Devils perspective that was already 23rd in the league in save percentage.
So, What’s Next?
The one thing this deal immediately does is create a hole in the Top 12 that needs to be filled. That said, the Devils already were dealing with the “we have too many forwards” issue, so moving out Mercer is one way of addressing that for now. I would expect their forward lines to be something like this for their next game tomorrow vs. Los Angeles.
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Luke Evangelista
Arseny Gritsyuk – Jack Hughes – Jesper Bratt
Anthony Mantha – Evan Rodrigues – Connor Brown
Amadeus Lombardi – Cody Glass – Jesper Boqvist
According to MoneyPuck, the Devils are roughly $285K over the salary cap. There were some rumblings that there might be a third team involved in this deal. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the Devils wound up flipping Brenden Dillon or Stefan Noesen to a third team to create enough space to maneuver. Dillon has been sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch, and Noesen has been bouncing between the Devils and Utica since clearing waivers.
Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if said move happened as early as today.
Final Thoughts
I am a little surprised that Sunny Mehta chose to pursue a deal for Connor Hellebuyck after spending most of the summer talking up Jake Allen and Nico Daws as the Devils goaltending tandem. But allow me to take this opportunity to let you in on a little secret.
You ready for this one?
Sunny Mehta is a poker player. And sometimes, poker players bluff.
Shocking, I know.
We obviously don’t know the inner workings. Maybe at one time, it was true that he didn’t want to pursue a goaltender. I don’t know if watching ten games of tape on Jake Allen or Nico Daws changed his mind, or if this was an opportunity to get a player with “best in the world” upside for a bunch of pieces that we’re not all that likely to miss two years from now. I’d guess it’s the latter.
But I really can’t blame Mehta for picking Hellebuyck as the horse he wants to hitch his wagon to. He’s as good a bet as anyone in the league to have a Vezina-caliber season, even at 33 years old. The Devils really aren’t paying a whole heck of a lot to bring him in. And while I touched on this briefly earlier this week when I wrote about a potential Dylan Larkin trade, I don’t think Jack Hughes is upset that they’re bringing in his former Olympic teammate that he just won a gold medal with. I don’t think this hurts matters if you think the endgame is uniting the Hughes brothers in New Jersey. I’m not saying the Devils should’ve done this specifically for that reason, but it doesn’t hurt.
The bottom line is that the Devils have had goaltending that has ranked somewhere between average at best to poor since 2018-19. We’re going on nearly a decade of this being a recurring issue. Sunny Mehta saw an opportunity to address it at a relatively low cost and took his swing. He’s betting on a goaltender who has made a career out of sound positioning rather than flailing and relying on athleticism. Will it work? Well, we are trying to prognosticate perhaps the league’s most volatile position. I don’t think any of us can say definitely it will work. But I do think he’s a better bet than anyone the Devils have had internally.
If nothing else, I appreciate Sunny Mehta being proactive to try to fix problems before they’re even huge problems. I appreciate that he’s not leaving well enough alone, or that something is “good enough for now”, or that he actually bothers to pick up the phone and do his job months before the trade deadline. I appreciate that he is further putting his stamp on this roster. Sunny has yet to make a move where I look at it and my reaction is “yeah, I don’t know about that one”, and that includes this move. I get the logic behind it. I get that the cost acquisition isn’t much at the end of the day.
Now comes the tricky part….a Devils goaltender consistently playing well. We’ll see if he’s up to the task.
