The New Jersey Devils have managed to turn a routine goaltending rest into a full-blown public-relations headache.
After Sunday night’s 4-0 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, general manager Sunny Mehta announced that Connor Hellebuyck would not start Tuesday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets, which would have been his first trip back to Winnipeg since he publicly requested a trade at the start of training camp. The explanation was blunt and oddly specific: starting him “would potentially give [the Devils] a reduction in [their] expected win probability.”
Head coach Sheldon Keefe offered a more traditional hockey explanation, saying the decision was tied to workload. If Hellebuyck played Tuesday, it would have been his fourth start in eight days.
“From our perspective, when you zoom out, this is a goaltender that is not going to play every single game of the season. You’re always looking for times to give him a night off,” said Keefe, h/t The Athletic’s Chris Johnston.
Hellebuyck, though, made it clear he would have preferred to play. After Sunday’s game, he said he was “disappointed” by the call, even if he understood the team’s thinking. He said he wanted the chance to skate back into Winnipeg and deal with whatever reaction came with it.
“I love Winnipeg,” Hellebuyck said, h/t The Athletic. “Playing there again and just facing the music and seeing the reaction, it’d be nice. It’s out of my hands.”
To soften the blow, the Devils are allowing Hellebuyck to hold a press conference before the game, a move that does little to quiet the noise around the decision.
The reaction has been swift, and not kind. Around the league, there’s plenty of room to question a team that is sidestepping a return game rather than letting the goalie handle it on the ice. Other players involved in major moves have faced their old teams without the same kind of protection, including Brady Tkachuk in Ottawa and Quinn Hughes in Vancouver after being dealt to the Minnesota Wild last December.
The Devils can point to rest and workload all they want. But by announcing the move two days early, they made it look less like a scheduling decision and more like they were trying to outrun the backlash.
That hasn’t worked. Instead, they’ve spent Monday getting dragged for a choice that was supposed to avoid drama in the first place.
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