Michael Hutchinson may be done playing pro hockey, but he’s not stepping away from the sport - and he’s not going far.
A little more than a month after officially ending an 11-season NHL career, the former Winnipeg Jets goaltender has taken his first coaching job. Hutchinson will join the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Selkirk Steelers as their goaltending coach for the 2026-27 season.
It’s a natural fit for a player whose post-hockey life is now rooted in the same province where his NHL story really took off. Hutchinson, 36, grew up in Barrie, Ont., but Winnipeg has become home after a career that sent him across North America and later overseas. Instead of heading to another training camp, he’ll now be making the roughly 30-minute drive north of the city to work with Manitoba’s next wave of goaltenders.
His ties to Winnipeg run well beyond his time in net for the Jets. Hutchinson signed with the organization in 2013 and went on to play 102 games across parts of five seasons with the club. His best stretch came in 2014-15, when he put together a 21-10-5 record with a 2.38 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage, helping Winnipeg reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since the franchise moved from Atlanta.
Overall, Hutchinson played 154 NHL games with Winnipeg, Florida, Toronto, Colorado, Columbus and Detroit before finishing his professional career with SaiPa in Finland.
Winnipeg, though, was always home. Hutchinson’s wife, Jenna, co-founded Winnipeg-based Jenna Rae Cakes with her twin sister, Ashley Kosowan, and the bakery has grown from a single location into one of the city’s best-known local brands. The Hutchinsons also stayed connected to Manitoba throughout his playing career and eventually built their permanent home in Winnipeg.
Now that he’s back for good, Hutchinson is wasting no time getting involved. He has already launched Hutchinson Goaltending in Winnipeg, where he offers private and semi-private lessons, team skates, consulting and video analysis to local goalies. The Selkirk job gives him another way to put more than a decade of professional experience to work.
The Steelers announced the hire this week and highlighted Hutchinson’s 154 NHL games and five seasons with the Jets as reasons they were eager to add him to the staff.
His return to Manitoba hockey won’t stop there. Hutchinson is also the only goaltender currently listed on the Winnipeg Jets roster for the 2026 Alumni Game against the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 24 at Canada Life Centre. He’ll be on the ice with a familiar group of Jets 2.0 names, including Blake Wheeler, Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, Mathieu Perreault, Paul Stastny and others.
When Hutchinson announced his retirement in July, the Jets told their former netminder they couldn’t wait to see him at the Alumni Game. Fans, it turns out, won’t have to wait that long to see him back around the game. Hutchinson has stopped moving, and Manitoba is where he’s staying.
In Other News...
Connor Hellebuyck Trade Pressure Is Suddenly Building On The Jets
Connor Hellebuycks public trade request has put Winnipeg in a far more complicated spot than it was facing earlier in the summer, when a few different routes seemed at least plausible. Florida and Buffalo were both part of the conversation at one point, but the landscape has shifted since then, with no-trade protections and other roster moves taking some of the cleaner options off the board. What looked like a market with multiple doors now feels a lot tighter, and the Jets have to weigh both the value coming back and the reality of losing a franchise goalie.
Winnipeg is still not in a rush to accept a lesser package, and that stance is part of what makes this so tricky. The club is holding firm for the kind of offer that makes sense on its end, while also needing a path to cover the crease if it does move Hellebuyck. Signing Stuart Skinner shows the Jets are preparing for that possibility, but the bigger question remains whether another team can assemble something strong enough to get the deal done. [Read more 🡒]