32 Teams, 32 Players: Connor Hellebuyck

Goalies do not win the MVP award enough. Maybe that should change this season.

Now that the 2024-25 NHL season has arrived we are going to highlight one player on each team that stands out for the season. What kind of player? Well, a player that could make a difference, be an X-factor, be on the verge of a breakout, or just simply be a player under the microscope and needing to have a big season.

Basically — which player do I think is the most fascinating on each team.

We are not going in any particularly order and continue today with Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets

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Goalies do not win the the NHL’s MVP award enough. They are also not in the discussion anywhere near enough, especially when you consider how impactful they are to the overall success or failure of their teams.

Personally, I loathe MVP arguments and the noise that comes along with them. I hate getting involved in them, and I do not miss being a voter for them. Mostly because the criteria for them tends to be wildly subjective and it largely depends on your definition of “value” vs. simply being the best overall player.

It probably should be a blend of both, with me personally giving a lean toward the best player because the best player should be, by definition, the most valuable. It is not their fault they might play on a crappy team.

But goaltending brings a different sort of wrinkle into the discussion because of how impactful an elite player at the position can be. Other than a quarterback in the NFL, I am not sure there is a single position in professional sports that can change a team as much.

Great goalies have almost single-handedly dragged mediocre or bad teams to the playoffs.

Great goalies win coaches the Coach Of The Year Award.

Great goalies can take lower-seeded teams on improbably playoff runs.

They literally change the game. They change seasons.

Despite that, they almost never get consideration for the MVP.

The last goalie to win it was Carey Price for the Montreal Canadiens during the 2014-15 season. He was one of those great goalies that dragged an otherwise bad team into the playoffs. Before him, you have to go all the way back to Jose Theodore during the 2001-02 season. Before him? Dominik Hasek in back-to-back years in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

A goalie has been a finalist just nine other times during that stretch, with only one of them (Roberto Luongo during the 2006-07 season) being the actual runner-up.

Over the past 10 years, the only other goalies besides Price to be in the top-three were New York Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin in 2021-22 and Sergei Bobrovsky with the Columbus Blue Jackets during the 2016-17 season.

That is still more attention than defensemen tend to get, but again, with goalies we are talking about the position that can impact games more than any other. Given their true value, goalies are typically underrepresented in this voting and in the discussion.

“But Adam, that is what the Vezina Trophy is for,” is going to be the counter argument.

No.

That is not the same. The MVP is not a forward specific award. It is for all positions. Individual awards should not remove people from this discussion. T

There are a couple of goalies in the NHL right now that have deserved more recognition here, if not outright wins. Shesterkin is one of them. But he has at least been a finalist.

Connor Hellebuyck has been very close to his equal in terms of lifting a flawed team and posting dominant numbers, and he has never finished higher than sixth in the MVP voting despite having two Vezina Trophies.

His sixth-place finish during the 2023-24 season was his high-point. He probably should have been a finalist. Given the way the 2024-25 season is starting off, he probably should be in the discussion again.

Let’s talk about it.