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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWinnipeg Jets\u2019 Ethan Frisch (73), Dylan Samberg (54), and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (37) during training camp at Hockey For All Centre Thursday, September 18, 2025.<\/p>\n
The \u201cConnor Hellebuyck is better\u201d argument \u2013 On one hand, this is a very easy argument to make. Hellebuyck has won two Vezina trophies as the best regular season goalie in the NHL, he won last year\u2019s Hart Trophy as the league\u2019s MVP and he led Team USA to Olympic gold. And he was the main reason why the Jets won the Jennings Trophy two years in a row as the team that allowed the fewest regular-season goals.<\/p>\n
Many in the legacy media in Winnipeg are fond of referring to Hellebuyck as \u201cthe best goalie in the world,\u201d and if the debate never includes the playoffs, most experts in the hockey world would agree. Hellebuyck has been the best regular-season goalie for a few years now.<\/p>\n
But if you widen the debate parameters to include the NHL\u2019s postseason, that label instantly evaporates into thin air. For reasons that his fans, his coaches, his agent, his family and I\u2019m sure he himself would like to understand, when the games really matter, Hellebuyck\u2019s calibre of play in the playoffs isn\u2019t anywhere close to what it is in the regular season.<\/p>\n
The \u201cJakub Dobe\u0161 is better\u201d argument \u2013 If one puts the recency bias of Dobe\u0161\u2019 breathtaking performance in the first round of this year\u2019s playoffs on hold and simply compares Hellebuyck\u2019s career to Dobe\u0161\u2019 career, there is no comparison to be made. None. Hellebuyck is better by orders of magnitude.<\/p>\n
But if you allow recency bias to enter the discussion and focus on one key metric, then this comparison instantly becomes much more intriguing.<\/p>\n
Montr\u00e9al\u2019s first-round win over Tampa Bay was only the third time in NHL history where all seven games of a playoff series were decided by one goal. Simply put, Dobe\u0161 had no margin of error. He could not afford to make a single mistake.<\/p>\n
Compare that \u201cmistake\u201d metric to Hellebuyck\u2019s recent playoff performances. He can sometimes make several mistakes a game, let alone in a series. Dobe\u0161 had to be nearly flawless in every minute of all seven games.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s contrast that to Hellebuyck\u2019s performance the last time the Jets won a playoff round. When they defeated the St. Louis Blues last year, Hellebuyck was the opposite of flawless. He was pulled in all three away games. The Jets won in spite of Connor\u2019s play, not because of it.<\/p>\n
In the seventh and deciding game between Montr\u00e9al and Tampa, the Lightning held the Habs to nine shots on goal for the entire game. Montr\u00e9al didn\u2019t register a shot on goal in the entire second period.<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 was spectacular in the entire series, but particularly brilliant in game seven when the play was so lopsided. In defeating the Bolts, Dobe\u0161 accomplished something that so far Hellebuyck never has \u2013 he singlehandedly stole a playoff-deciding game that his team had no right winning.<\/p>\n
In the very few instances where the Jets have won a playoff series, they were never massively outplayed in the deciding game the way the Habs were against Tampa.<\/p>\n
No one in Montr\u00e9al or anywhere in Canada is calling Dobe\u0161 the best goalie in the world (at least not yet), but it is both noteworthy and undeniable that the rookie achieved something that has eluded the veteran Hellebuyck \u2013 putting his team on his shoulders and stealing a game seven (and arguably the entire series) all by himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the great things about sport is the way it lends itself to all kinds of hypothetical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,5239,927,22073,449],"class_list":["post-677979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hockey","tag-opinion","tag-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg-jets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}