DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Connor Hellebuyck stood in front of his net during the singing of the \u201cStar-Spangled Banner\u201d and thought \u201cFinally!\u201d then played like a three-time Vezina Trophy winner in his first game in six months.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old enjoyed a multigoal lead for most of the night in his New Jersey debut and allowed one goal on 17 shots as the Devils beat the Dallas Stars 5-1 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lot of fun,\u201d said Hellebuyck, who was traded four days ago by the Winnipeg Jets after his suspension for failing to report to training camp. His last NHL action prior to Tuesday came on April 13, a 6-2 loss at Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys in front of me just played a perfect game for me to get acclimated,\u201d he said. \u201cNot a lot of shots, blocking everything, keeping everything to the outside. Letting me see things. Letting me touch the puck a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Devils coach Sheldon Keefe liked what he saw.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was exceptional,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cNot only does it seem like he\u2019s in midseason form, but it seems like he\u2019s been here a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hellebuyck spent 11 seasons with the Jets, including a Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning season in 2024-25, and helped the United States win gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics this year.<\/p>\n
A fifth-round draft pick in 2012 by Winnipeg, Hellebuyck is fifth on the U.S.-born goaltenders list with at least 345 career wins. Among U.S.-born goalies with 300 or more career starts, his .916 save percentage going into Tuesday ranked fourth and 2.58 goals-against average ranked sixth.<\/p>\n
Hellebuyck said he felt few if any nerves getting back to NHL action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for a while,\u201d he said. \u201cThey played so good in front of me that I was never really worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hellebuyck was skating in his native Michigan before the trade was completed and went through one practice and Tuesday\u2019s optional morning skate. He has five seasons left on a seven-year contract with an annual salary cap hit of $8.5 million.<\/p>\n
He played in familiar territory, going in with a 14-12-0 record against Dallas, a Central Division opponent of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the ice, but one hard part is it\u2019s hot,\u201d Hellebuyck said. \u201cI sweat a lot in this game. But it\u2019s all part of the adjustment, and it\u2019s good to get one under me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teammate Jack Hughes lost a tooth during the game and finished wearing a bubble on his helmet. Hughes lost multiple teeth when most recently playing in front of Hellebuyck, during the gold-medal win over Canada in Italy last winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to stop doing that,\u201d Hellebuyck said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n See AP\u2019s full NHL coverage here\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Connor Hellebuyck stood in front of his net during the singing of the \u201cStar-Spangled Banner\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25380,557,102,104,103],"class_list":["post-479071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}