The Winnipeg Jets went from the NHL‘s best record a year ago to missing the playoffs entirely during the 2025-26 season. That is a staggering regression, and there were a lot of problems that led to it. Now that the season is over, Winnipeg has an even bigger problem on its hands when it comes to its future teams.
The problem?
Its best and most important player, starting goalie Connor Hellebuyck, seems to be unhappy with the direction of the franchise and absolutely eviscerated the entire organization during his end-of-the-year media availability on Friday.
Connor Hellebuyck calls out everybody in Winnipeg
Even though the Jets have won a lot of games over the past few years and been a consistent playoff team, there have always been underlying flaws with the roster that have been repeatedly masked by Hellebuyck’s all-world play. He is a three-time Vezina Trophy winner as the league’s best goalie and took home the Hart Trophy a year ago as the league MVP.
As he goes, the team goes. Usually.
Despite Hellebuyck having another strong season, Winnipeg still missed the playoffs in a weak, watered-down Western Conference where 90 points was all it would have taken to get in.
On Friday, Hellebuyck sounded off on everybody in charge of constructing the team for allowing that to happen, while also hesitating to answer when asked if he is reconsidering his future with the team.
Among his criticisms and concerns were the ability of management to bring players to Winnipeg and make them want to play there, while saying that complacency on the part of the front office is not going to get the job done.
When he was asked directly about reconsidering his future there, he gave a brutally honest answer.
“I don’t want to go and leave any speculation,” Hellebuyck said after several seconds. “I love this city, and I love playing here. The fans have given me so much, and I’ve given so much to the fans. There’s a real connection there. I wish more people around the league would see that and could see that. Am I going to go in and tell you that right now I feel amazing about winning a Cup tomorrow? Like, no. No team out of the playoffs is going to say that. No player out of the playoffs is going to say that. But, you know, you make your decisions, and you live by them. As time goes by, you try to re-evaluate and then, honestly, as an athlete, the only thing you can do is put your best foot forward.
“In this moment, after going through that, it’s hard,” Hellebuyck continued. “It’s the next day. To all of a sudden come over here and say, ‘We’re going to be amazing next year after we just did that (miss the playoffs).’ That’s just not how it works … to take the step back that we did this year just felt very wrong. From the Presidents’ Trophy to this, it felt like this should have never happened. And it did. And I’m part of it.”
Hellebuyck is going to be 33 years old next season and has spent his entire career in Winnipeg. Outside of his gold-medal-winning performance with Team USA at the 2026 Olympics, he has not found any real team success despite being one of the two or three best goalies in the world for the better part of his career. He is now closer to retirement than he is the beginning of his career, and he is running out of time to get his name on the Stanley Cup.
Winnipeg has consistently failed in putting the type of team around him that can win, and management has been consistently slow to make changes to the roster that can better support their franchise goalie. He might be running out of patience for them to do it.
“What we did this year was unacceptable. No one wants to be part of that. … Can you get the pieces that you need? Will the players come? These are always questions that you have in Winnipeg. I’ve made it my home and I like it here, but the majority of the league doesn’t feel the same way,” Hellebuyck continued.
The Jets were already in a situation where it was going to need to make major changes this offseason. If they are not careful and are unable to smooth things over, that could also involve a change with their franchise goalie.