Winnipeg Jets Open Up On How They Feel About Not Facing Hellebuyck Tuesday Night
The New Jersey Devils have made their statement. Connor Hellebuyck will not start in his new team's first visit to Winnipeg. The Jets' former MVP goalie asked out after 11 years, and this was Winnipeg's chance to show him how they feel about it. Now they won't get that chance. And Jets head coach Scott Arniel thinks it stinks.
Jets head coach Scott Arniel is “disappointed” Connor Hellebuyck won’t face his former team Tuesday, saying it would bring closure 😬 The Devils won’t visit Winnipeg again in the regular season until at least 2027-28 👀 https://t.co/RQqMIahjx5
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) November 9, 2026
In particular, Arniel was shocked that Devils GM Sunny Mehta used analytics to try to explain this shocking move.
"Disappointed... I’ve seen a lot of analytics in my life since it’s really come into the forefront. I’m not sure how this works into the analytics part of it...
"They can do whatever they want, but you know, I think that it would put closure to it. This doesn't. We're going to see them in 10 days or 10 games or nine games in their building, and I'm sure he's going to be in the net then. So, it's disappointing."
Jets players wanted to 'get this over & done with'
Arniel talked about what it would have meant to his players to get this one under their belt:
"It goes back to the core guys that have been with Helly from the very beginning that, you know, he kind of left on. That's the part for me that's hard. I mean, he just gave up on us. And so it would be nice to just finally be done with this and... it drags it out to 10 or nine more games from now, then we're going to have to start into talking about it again here. That's the biggest disappointment for me.
"I think that we just wanted to get this game over and done with and play him. Let the fans react how they were going to react. We just had to go out and you know get our two points... I was kind of hoping that we'd be done after tomorrow night."
As for the Winnipeg fans, Arniel feels for them as well.
Jets fans are left with 'frustration' after Hellebuyck ducks facing them
"I can feel the frustration with the fans... just in the fact that we wanted to get this put to bed. And that's the biggest thing. It's not getting put to bed here. It's going to linger again."
The Jets lost their first five games after the trade went down, and hit rock bottom in a 7-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes just over a week ago. But a three-game win streak, including the insane, history-making four-goal comeback over the Montreal Canadiens, has the Jets feeling good about themselves again.
There'll certainly still be some emotions in the building, and we expect the Winnipeg fans to still have their signs and their chants for this one Tuesday night. Unfortunately for them, Hellebuyck won't be on the receiving end of it on the ice.