Which teams are a good fit for Connor Hellebuyck?
With Dylan Larkin requesting a trade away from the Detroit Red Wings and Brady Tkachuk sent to the Florida Panthers from the Ottawa Senators, trade dominoes are falling as they pertain to members of the gold medal-winning American Olympic team.
One more that could still fall this offseason is Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who shined at the Olympics and earned the Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy for his sterling efforts in the NHL in the 2024-25 season.
If Hellebuyck moves, there is no shortage of teams who would love to add the all-world goaltender in what seems to be morphing into an arms race among the leagues’ top contenders.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether Florida, Vegas or Buffalo are realistic landing spots for Hellebuyck if a trade does indeed take place.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Our guy Matt Larkin has an all new trade board up at DailyFaceoff.com, and one of the names that’s been moved up in the board a little bit is Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets, staying on the goaltending theme. There were whispers for the last couple of months that, “Ah, maybe Connor Hellebuyck’s not all too happy in Winnipeg.” And now on the heels of the Brady Tkachuk trade, it seems to be a little bit more chatter surrounding the future of the Winnipeg Jets number one goalie. So the first question I sort of had was what could be the best landing spot for Connor Hellebuyck? And I think a lot of people, a lot of people before the Tkachuk trade, like when the Mackie Samoskevich deal went down, a lot of people looked at that and went, “Oh man, is Florida gearing up for the Connor Hellebuyck deal?” And it would have made a lot of sense. I kind of look at it now and go iff Florida wasn’t willing to part with Anton Lundell in the Brady deal, I don’t think they’re going to be willing to part with Anton Lundell in a Connor Hellebuyck deal. Would they? Like I just, the point is, I don’t know if Florida necessarily has the assets. The other obvious team now that we’re heading into, well, whenever these trade requests happen, Vegas is on there. We know they’re in the mix on [Dylan] Larkin too, but I don’t know if Vegas has the future assets for a Hellebuyck, and also Carter Hart’s there, and he played pretty good if you remember the Stanley Cup Playoffs. So I’m not sure, I’m not sure if Vegas is a fit. The one team that I’m honestly really, really curious about… It’s Buffalo for me. I’m really, really curious about the Buffalo Sabres and what sort of an offer they could put together for a guy like Connor Hellebuyck.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…