Hellebuyck has been as advertised for the Devils early on

The New Jersey Devils made a big splash in October when they landed the 2025 Hart Trophy-winning goalie Connor Hellebuyck in a blockbuster trade with the Winnipeg Jets to end the goalie’s holdout after requesting a trade during the offseason.

Hellebuyck didn’t need much practice time to be ready to make his debut with the Devils, either, as the Olympic gold medalist has made two starts with his new team, both wins, in which he’s posted a .923 save percentage and 1.50 goals against average.

Now, with Hellebuyck providing high level goaltending at least in the early going of his tenure, New Jersey looks like a real threat in the Eastern Conference.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters to discuss the early returns on the new partnership between the Devils and the three-time Vezina Trophy winning goaltender.

Tyler Yaremchuk:  Life’s good for Devils fans right now. They go get Connor Hellebuyck, he wins his first 2 games as a Devil, he’s not even facing a lot of rubber, and that’s almost where I want to start here, like, the early returns here, with how few chances he’s facing and how good he’s looked. It’s like, this might be a pretty nice little marriage.

Carter Hutton: Yeah, it’s interesting, because when you get a guy like that in your locker room, it brings this sense of belief amongst everybody else. It shows that management is working and they believe in this team. And I tell you what, that does a lot for how you play in the game. And it showed in the 2 games he’s played, like, he really hasn’t faced that much work. What did he have? 19 saves and 21 shots against Vegas, 17 saves on 18 against Dallas. He’s given up 3, none were his fault, and he’s looked really sharp so far after having his worst career save percentage year a year ago.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…