WINNIPEG — Connor Hellebuyck has been the backbone of these Winnipeg Jets for a long time.
He will need to be the Jets player down the stretch run for this team to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
There have been countless times over the years when the Jets No. 1 goalie has been there to bail out his teammates when they haven’t quite been at their collective best.
But as the Jets are going through an extended rough patch, Hellebuyck hasn’t been quite as sharp as we’re used to seeing him be.
And when the margin for error is so slim, having average goaltending hasn’t quite been enough.
Not when he’s conditioned folks to expect him to put on the Superman cape and deliver elite-level performances with regularity.
On a night where Hellebuyck gave up three goals on 22 shots and Marc-Andre Fleury played like it was the 2018 Western Conference final, there was Jets head coach Rick Bowness standing at the podium, left to answer a question about whether or not he has to say anything to his workhorse netminder after a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.
“No he’ll figure it out. He’s a great goaltender, he’s a tremendous competitor,” said Bowness, whose club dropped to 0-3 against the Wild this season. “He’s got to figure it out and he will. (Jets goalie coach) Wade (Flaherty) works with him, Flats has done a great job with him. He’s a great goalie. You don’t normally see that puck go in the net.
“Right now, that’s what’s happening. We’re giving up a goal like that and we’re losing by one goal. The first goal the other night against San Jose, those things don’t normally go in our net. Right now they’re going in and that’s fine. We have to find a way to put the puck in their net.”
Not surprisingly, Bowness expressed full confidence in Hellebuyck — and he has plenty of reason to do so.
As a reminder, the goal that went in on Monday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks was on backup David Rittich, not Hellebuyck.
But part of the reason for Rittich playing that game was to get Hellebuyck an extended breather, as he will be leaned on heavily during the final 17 games.
As a reminder, Hellebuyck is having an outstanding season, recent hiccups notwithstanding.
He’s got three shutouts to go along with a 2.63 goals-against average and .918 save percentage. He also remains among the league leaders in goals saved above expected, so the analytics support the raw numbers.
It’s also true that Hellebuyck is battling through one of the toughest stretches of his entire career.
He’s given up 22 goals in his past five starts and been chased in two of them, though one of them was so he could play the next night in the rematch against the Edmonton Oilers, a game the Jets won 7-5.
In three of those starts, Hellebuyck has allowed five goals and it’s not like there have been an abundance of softies.
But Wednesday’s game-winner from Ryan Hartman, on a wrister through the five-hole, was a deflator.
Although the Jets were able to get within one on a goal from Nino Niederreiter, the decisive marker was one Hellebuyck simply couldn’t afford to give up.
It’s far too simplistic to suggest that goaltending cost the Jets the victory in this one, but Fleury won the battle of the masked men, finishing with 46 saves for his fourth consecutive win.
The Jets, meanwhile, have just one victory in the past eight games (going 1-5-2).
Not only have the Jets slipped into the second wild card berth in the Western Conference, they’ve left the door open to potentially get chased down by the Calgary Flames (71 points) or the Nashville Predators (69 points but four games in hand).
The Jets are about to embark on a three-game road trip and a four-game stretch that includes tilts against the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins.
It’s a stretch of games that could go a long way to defining this season and the Jets will be without centre Pierre-Luc Dubois for at least one more game (and likely more) after he suffered an upper-body injury on Monday.
That puts even more pressure on an offensive attack that has been mostly starved for goals and for a power-play that can’t seem to get back on track.
Bowness had no trouble finding a silver lining when discussing the most recent setback.
“It’s one of the best games we’ve played all year,” said Bowness. “We dominated the game, 82 shot attempts, I don’t know if we’ve done that this year. Lots of scoring chances, Fleury was outstanding, a lot of loose pucks we couldn’t get our sticks to, but that’s one of the best games we’ve played all year. If we play like that, we’ll take it. Some nights you just don’t get any puck luck and right now we’re not getting any puck luck. But I’ll take that effort and the way we played against anybody all year.
“If you’ve got to do it the hard way, we’re going to have to do it the hard way. We’ve got to win some games on the road. But the most important thing is to keep the effort and play like we did tonight. That’s the most important thing. Eventually, that puck is going to go in.”
Jets left-winger Kyle Connor shared a similar sentiment, albeit with a slightly different tone in the delivery.
“Yeah, it definitely sucks. But that’s hockey. We’re going to have those nights,” said Connor. “We’ve got to keep the confidence high in this group. Putting up that many shots, that many grade A’s, you’re going to take that most nights. Keep your head up. Stick with it. We have a lot of veterans in this room. We know that if we play that game for a majority of the year, we take that over an 82-game schedule, we’re going to score a lot of goals.
“We know we have a great team here, we just got to put it together. We’re on that trajectory. The last couple games have been a hell of a lot better, so we’ve got to keep building, keep getting better and look on for the next one.”
There was a scary moment for Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov, as he left the game with an apparent left leg injury after Jets defenceman Logan Stanley fell on him with the full weight of his body.
Kaprizov’s leg appeared to get tangled up on his way to the ice.
“Well, he stopped and I tried to finish my check on him. Then I just fell on top of him,” said Stanley, who scored a goal as he returned to the lineup. “I wasn’t expecting him to go down. It’s just an unfortunate play.”