{"id":948450,"date":"2026-10-27T18:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T18:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948450\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T18:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T18:30:09","slug":"hellebuyck-to-make-first-start-for-devils-against-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948450\/","title":{"rendered":"Hellebuyck to make first start for Devils against Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hellebuyck did not report for training camp last month, the Jets suspended him. The ban\u00a0was set to end Friday, but he was traded to New Jersey for forward Dawson Mercer<\/a>, goalie Nico Daws<\/a>, forward Nick Bjugstad<\/a>, the rights to unsigned draft choice forward Alexander Command<\/a>, New Jersey’s own second-round pick in the 2029\u00a0NHL Draft and its seventh-round selection in the 2027 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

Hellebuyck, who helped Team USA win the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, spent several weeks skating in Michigan while suspended. He practiced with the Devils for the first time Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was fun,” Hellebuyck said. “I’ve been really looking forward to this day for a while now, and it felt good getting acclimated with a new group and having some fun out there.”<\/p>\n

The Devils (7-4-0) begin a three-game road trip Tuesday, the first of a back-to-back set. They visit the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday and the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday.<\/p>\n

“There’s no practice time available,” Keefe said. “That’s just the reality of the schedule where we’re at. So get him in, and you try to get him in a rhythm and get him going. To that end, no reason to wait.”<\/p>\n

Hellebuyck has 345 wins, third-most among active goalies behind Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a> (459) and Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>\u00a0(375). Only Vasilevskiy (368) has more since Hellebuyck made his NHL debut in the 2015-16 season. Hellebuyck has also started at least 50 games in nine of the past 10 seasons, only failing to do so in the shortened 2020-21 season when he started 45 of the Jets’ 56 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Connor’s point of view, from the moment he arrived in New Jersey, or really I think from the moment of the trade, he’s very direct and confident in saying that he’s ready to play,” Keefe said. “He’s been preparing for something to happen and wanting to make sure that the moment something happened, he was ready to go. \u2026 he’s really put in the work, and there’s obviously a great career there and a long track record of success, so you’ve got to give him trust in it too.”<\/p>\n

NHL.com independent correspondent Robert Tiffin contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Hellebuyck did not report for training camp last month, the Jets suspended him. The ban\u00a0was set to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-948450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948450","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=948450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}