How Jets’ Hellebuyck responds after another rough start will define series vs. Blues

How did things go so wrong, so fast?

The Winnipeg Jets had put forth a strong first 20 minutes, as good as you could ask for from a road team, and entered the second period deadlocked 1-1. 

By the midway point of the third period, Winnipeg trailed 5-1 and St. Louis Blues fans chanted “We Want Connor” as Eric Comrie tended the net in relief for a second straight game. 

There’s no way around it, Connor Hellebuyck has not been playing anywhere close to a Hart-Trophy candidate over the last two games, allowing 11 goals on 43 shots against. At the same time, the Jets’ skaters are doing their Vezina-calibre goaltender a disservice — they’re not clearing out the net front well enough.

Sort of feels like déjà vu, hey?

These last two games mirror what happened against the Colorado Avalanche last year, a series that Hellebuyck — who posted a 5.23 goals against average in five playoff games — didn’t want to dwell on in his pre-playoff media availability. A series where he said he believed he played the best hockey of his career. A series where the Jets opponent capitalized on their inability to protect the net front. 

It’s happening all over again. 

Why does this happen to Hellebuyck in the playoffs? 

Game 4 shed further light on what has become a troubling playoff pattern for these Jets.

“You watch the replay of the goals that went in, I mean, their deflections, their screens, they’re bouncing off us and in,” defenceman Luke Schenn told reporters after the loss, which tied the series 2-2.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are a different game for a goaltender, there are more screens on shots and the one-on-one aspect — where Hellebuyck thrives, as he’s excellent at reading point shots — fades. Hellebuyck isn’t the best skater, and that’s partially why he stays so deep in his net. The problem with that, though, is that with all the traffic that comes in the post-season, his ability to respond is hindered, and that’s why he gets exposed up high, through traffic and on rebounds.

When you’re playing against a team through the course of a playoff series, it’s easy to expose that. Now, obviously, there’s an onus on Hellebuyck to see the puck better and react quicker. There’s also onus on him to play with more urgency, be it when he plays the puck — which often triggers an audible gasp — or when covering the puck, like on Brayden Schenn’s goal in Game 4 where he looked like that one buddy who loses rock paper scissors and is thrown into the net for road hockey.

But the Jets defence shares a good chunk of the blame here, too. They’re not clearing the net front. 

“At the end of the day, this time of year, that’s where games are won and lost,” Schenn said.

The Jets have one of the smaller top fours in the league, and it’s shown on a lot of the goals where there’s so much chaos in front of Hellebuyck. 

“The coverage part of it, there’s ways we have to play. One is obviously, if there are people getting to the net, we have to get them out of there before they try to get their screens,” Jets coach Scott Arniel told reporters. “We’ve got to box out earlier, those types of things. There’s a lot, like I mentioned, of coverage stuff. We know how to do those things. We’ve been doing it all year long. We just have to get back to doing it. We were better at it in the first, we did a great job at it in the first.”

You know what deflated them after the first? That tipped goal by Jake Neighbours on a fluttering puck, with 23 seconds remaining in the first period. It killed the Jets’ momentum, and it wasn’t long into the second until the Blues imposed their will. Both parties — the Jets defence and Hellebuyck — were at fault here, although at the end of the day, the buck stops at Hellebuyck to see those shots among the chaos.

“We unraveled in the last seven, eight minutes of that second period,” Mark Scheifele told reporters. “I don’t know if it’s the moment we’re at or whatever, but it’s uncharacteristic of our group.”

Uncharacteristic? Maybe in the regular season. This is a playoff pattern. And it’s up to the man who is showered with “M—V—P” chants before games to get the Jets through this final stretch of the series. 

“I’m 100 per cent confident in Connor Hellebuyck,” Arniel said. “His resume speaks for itself.”

His resume in the regular season speaks for itself. His playoff resume, as we’ve seen, is hardly as flattering.

How Hellebuyck plays, from here on out, will define the series. 

“We really wanted to come home either winning it or up 3-1. We’re not. Now it’s a best of three,” Arniel said. “Our best players have to be better than their best players.”

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