Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
Not that anyone who has watched Connor Hellebuyck during his nine seasons in Winnipeg with the Jets will be surprised but the NHL announced on Thursday that he had been named to the Western Conference team for the 2024 NHL All-Star weekend.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
The Michigan product signed a seven-year extension with Winnipeg to start the season which began a bit slowly for him allowing 13 goals against in his first 3 games of the season before he and the team tightened things up. Since that time he has been almost unbeatable as he and the team climbed the leagues standings and sit amongst the top clubs in the NHL. He was named the 3rd Star of the Month for December.
As per the folks at Moneypuck the Jets top netminder has the best goals saved above expected* in the entire NHL at 16.2 which is impressive given how his season started.
Winnipeg is in the midst of a team record setting points streak of ten games (8-0-2) and during that time Hellebuyck’s save percentage was:
vs San Jose .964
vs Tampa .941
vs Minnesota .944
vs Chicago .920
vs Boston .960
vs Montreal .885
vs Colorado .938
vs Los Angeles .941
Since he’s become a full-time NHLer in 2015-16 no goalie has made more saves or faced more shots or played in as many games as the Jets netminder.
The three previous times he was named to an All-Star game were in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
* For those unfamiliar with the term it is defined as:
Goals Saved Above Expected: Expected Goals against minus the actual number of goals the goalie has let in. A positive number means the goalie is stopping more goals than an average goalie would.
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