Connor Hellebuyck

Connor Hellebuyck grew up in Commerce, Michigan, playing high school hockey at a time when the USHL and NAHL drafts passed him by entirely. Rather than step back, he dragged friends out to public stick-and-puck sessions and worked on his game on his own — stealing one end of the ice, and when he couldn't get a net, moving to the center of the sheet to run movement drills by himself until he was tired. That self-directed stretch led to an invitation to camp with the Odessa Jackalopes in the NAHL, and from there things, as he put it on Episode 86 of the InGoal Radio Podcast, "really got going" ^[1].

After one season in Odessa, Hellebuyck went on to play NCAA Division I hockey at UMass-Lowell. The Jets selected him in the fifth round of the 2012 NHL Draft, 130th overall. He began his professional career with Winnipeg's AHL affiliate, the St. John's IceCaps, during the 2014-15 season, and made his first NHL appearances with the Jets in 2015-16, going 13-11 in 26 games with a 2.34 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage.

The 2016-17 season marked the beginning of Hellebuyck's full-time role as Winnipeg's starter, and he has remained there ever since — playing at least 45 games in every season except the shortened 2020-21 campaign. In 2017-18, he posted a 44-11 record in 67 games with a 2.36 GAA and a .924 save percentage, with 6 shutouts. That season established his place as one of the NHL's most heavily deployed goaltenders, a pattern that has continued across more than a decade.

In 2019-20, Hellebuyck won the Vezina Trophy — awarded to the goaltender adjudged to be the best at his position — finishing with a 31-21 record in 58 games, a .922 save percentage, and 6 shutouts. He described receiving the call from Grant Fuhr as "a phenomenal feeling," telling InGoal Radio that it was "one of those moments that it's just going to add another milestone and I'm going to cherish the memory" ^[1]. A six-year, $37 million contract extension with the Jets — the dollar total chosen deliberately to match his jersey number 37 — had already secured his future in Winnipeg. Why that number, and the permission required to wear it, was discussed on InGoal Radio Episode 86 ^[2].

Hellebuyck won the Vezina again after the 2023-24 season, going 37-19 in 60 games with a 2.39 GAA, a .921 save percentage, and 5 shutouts. Then, in 2024-25, he had arguably the most decorated individual season of his career: a 47-12 record in 63 games, a 2.00 GAA, a .925 save percentage, 8 shutouts, a third Vezina Trophy, and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player. As Colin Hodd detailed for InGoal, that third Vezina placed Hellebuyck alongside Patrick Roy (3), Martin Brodeur (4), and Dominik Hasek (6) as the only goalies to win the award at least three times since general managers took over the voting in 1981-82. The Hart, meanwhile, has been won by a goaltender only eight times in a hundred years ^[1].

Through 625 NHL regular-season games — all with Winnipeg — Hellebuyck has accumulated 345 wins, 45 shutouts, a career 2.58 GAA, and a .916 save percentage. In the 2024-25 season alone he logged 63 games, making him one of the most frequently played goaltenders in the modern era. As Kevin Woodley noted in a January 2025 InGoal piece, Hellebuyck led the NHL in wins (44) and shutouts (9) across the full 2024 calendar year — four more shutouts than any other goaltender and the most in a calendar year since 2015 — while facing more shots (1,900) and making more saves (1,759) than anyone else in the league ^[3].

In October 2023, Hellebuyck signed a seven-year, $59.5 million extension with the Jets, keeping him in Winnipeg through the foreseeable future ^[4].

His 2024-25 postseason drew significant analytical attention. InGoal examined his home-versus-road splits during the Jets' second-round series against the Dallas Stars using shot-quality data from Clear Sight Analytics — a deep look at how much of the performance gap was attributable to Hellebuyck and how much reflected the defensive environment around him ^[5].

At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Hellebuyck was the United States' starting goaltender, making 41 saves in a 2-1 gold-medal victory — the country's first Olympic hockey gold since 1980.

The people around Hellebuyck have described his preparation and game-reading in specific terms. Jets goaltending coach Wade Flaherty, who has worked with him through eight years of video sessions, said: "He calculates his depth whether he feels he can go out, because he knows what the options are. It's amazing." Longtime backup Eric Comrie, who spoke on the InGoal Radio Podcast in November 2024, described Hellebuyck's hockey mind as "better than anyone I've ever met." Trainer Adam Francilia, who has worked with Hellebuyck for eight seasons, noted that his pre-game routine — racquetballs, juggling, eye exercises on the bench — is approached with the same attention to detail as everything else he does ^[3].

Hellebuyck himself has traced much of his development to repetition and self-study, emphasizing on the InGoal Radio Podcast that adapting and building his game — including adjusting his hand position coming into the NHL and incorporating RVH — "all comes down to repetition: over and over and over again" ^[1].

InGoal Magazine has covered Connor Hellebuyck in one podcast appearance, one Parent Segment, nine Pro Reads, one drill breakdown, and three InGoal articles.

The nine Pro Reads video sessions — available to InGoal members — show Hellebuyck walking through rush reads, power-play management, and screen situations in his own words, save by save. He breaks down 2-on-1s against the Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators ^{[6] [7]}, a 3-on-2 against the Toronto Maple Leafs ^[8], a 5-on-3 power play against the Dallas Stars ^[9], and multiple other sequences ^{[10] [11] [4] [12]}. To mark his third Vezina and Hart Trophy win in 2025, InGoal compiled all eight video breakdowns into a single 21-minute extended session ^[13]. A companion drill breakdown features Jets goaltending coach Wade Flaherty explaining the lateral-movement progression he and Hellebuyck developed together, with Hellebuyck describing exactly what he looks for in that type of drill and why he wants practice to be uncomfortable ^[14].

A January 2025 InGoal feature examined what makes Hellebuyck's approach distinctive, drawing on perspectives from Flaherty, Francilia, and Comrie, with video from past sessions ^[3]. And in a 2026 Parent Segment, David Hutchison used Hellebuyck's path — no tier-one play, no Brick tournament, no development camp, just high school hockey, the NAHL, NCAA Division I, and eventually the NHL — as a lens on the pressure parents feel to replicate prescribed developmental checklists ^[15].