The Winnipeg Jets were the best hockey team in the world, largely because they had the best goalie in the world, until they weren’t and didn’t. They are now facing down the possibility of being the biggest disappointment in the sport, because their goalie has been the biggest disappointment. Again.
Therein lies the problem Jets coach Scott Arniel arose to today: What to do about a three-year trend that plays itself out the same way every time. It's Wile E. Coyote sending away to Acme for the same contraption that breaks every time he uses it.
The Jets have used Connor Hellebuyck, said best goalie, as their get-out-of-jail-free card for years now, and he has been exactly that. The team in front of him is typically excellent but he is considered the finest of his kind, as long as you avert your eyes from the last three postseasons, and more specifically the last two games against the St. Louis Blues, in both of which Hellebuyck was pulled from the game outright. He has allowed four goals or more in 10 of his last 13 playoff games, roughly two goals per game worse than his overall average, and his save percentage has sat stubbornly in the mid .800s for 12 of his last 13—below .800 in the last two.
In short, the Jets look to be in freefall because (a) Hellebuyck, (b) because they've forgotten how to play in front of Hellebuyck, and (c) because the Blues know exactly how to play in front of Hellebuyck. Murat Ates and Jesse Granger ground this more specifically in The Athletic after Game 3. Then the Jets got blitzed again, leaving Arniel to wear the brave face on Hellebuyck's behalf.
"I'm 100 percent confident in Connor Hellebuyck," he said after the Blues won Game 4, 5-1. "His résumé speaks for itself. At the end of the day, we need to be better in front of him. We need to let him see some pucks. There are things we have to do to help him. And there's things he has to do to help us."
Under normal circumstances, Eric Comrie would be starting Game 5 Wednesday night because the voodoo of goaltending requires changing starters if only for the appearance of looking busy. But Hellebuyck casts far too long a shadow for the Jets, and replacing him now even if superficially justified would read as desperation verging on panic. Besides, if we are to take the Blues' plan at face value, there is no guarantee that Comrie would be anything other than change for change's sake. St. Louis crowds the area in front of the Winnipeg goal, the Jets don't move them out well enough, and every shot is obscured by sticks, legs, elbows and arses.
Blues coach Jim Montgomery has clearly instructed his defensemen to fire away on goal and let the traffic in front do its work. In the first two games of the series, both Winnipeg victories, St. Louis blueliners took only 25 of the team's 90 shots at goal; in Games 3 and 4, they took 51 of the total of 107. This is not a radical notion; it is also part of how Colorado beat Winnipeg last year, and Vegas the year before.
“It’s playoffs,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “Not just our series, but look league-wide right now how pucks and goals are going in. It’s such a cliché answer, but you get people and traffic to the net, shoot the puck and hopefully good things happen.”
When the best team is suddenly cornered, there must be easy explanations, and Hellebuyck's postseason shortcomings provide the easiest, and the sexiest. But unless Arniel decides to torch his job entirely, we will see Hellebuyck again Wednesday night at home in front of 15,000 white-clad Manitobans in a mood for blood but willing to fall back in love if results dictate. That's win-win no matter how you parse it.
