Let's try to make sense of Connor Hellebuyck's playoff struggles

Goaltending is more mental than physical, and Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets might provide the best example.

He’s long been a positive example, becoming one of the best in goal despite not being the most flexible or athletically gifted. His super-processor of a brain and his ability to diagnose plays as they unfold make him special. At his best, it’s as if Hellebuyck sees into the future and positions himself perfectly for the shot that only he sees coming.

Lately, he’s been an example for how the mental side of goaltending can go wrong.

For the third consecutive year, Hellebuyck has struggled mightily in the playoffs following a brilliant regular season. He and the Jets escaped the first round after a double-overtime win over St. Louis in Game 7, but Winnipeg will need a much better version of Hellebuyck to beat the Dallas Stars in Round 2.

It’s all but a certainty that Hellebuyck will win his third Vezina Trophy next month. His save percentage of .830 this postseason would be the worst by that year’s Vezina winner since 1996, and the second-worst in the 42 years since the award was voted on.

Hellebuyck’s -9.82 goals saved above expected ranks last in these playoffs and is the third-worst mark by any goalie in a single postseason since the stat was tracked in 2007.

What is going on? Why does this generation’s most consistent netminder suddenly lose his mojo when the postseason arrives? With a series win under his belt, and the pressure to be perfect lifted, will he finally return to the form we’re used to seeing?

There isn’t a simple answer. If there was, Hellebuyck and the Jets would’ve found it by now.

The truth is nuanced, with several factors at play. There’s the human element – the pressure associated with playoff hockey and the mental toll that can take on anyone, even a hyper-focused professional athlete. There’s also data and game film that could point to the root cause for Hellebuyck’s struggles, which are specific to his style of play and the way goals are scored in the playoffs — or the workload he takes on.

The narrative around his playoff performance has become so loud, he can’t escape it. Publicly, he has said all of the right things about blocking out the outside noise, but he’s a smart guy.

“I am going to be better,” Hellebuyck said following Game 4, when he was pulled after allowing five goals on 18 shots. “I’ve studied goaltending extremely hard. I’ve probably studied it the most out of anyone in this world. So I know what to do, and how to get my best game.”

Hellebuyck has made a career of bold proclamations like that one. He committed to his “big and boring” style as a teenager, confidently choosing which aspects of NHL goaltenders’ games did and didn’t work for him. He asserted that he was a Vezina Trophy goaltender long before he posted the numbers to back it up and has been a longtime proponent of focusing only on positive framing. He believes that his reality is determined by his focus.

Last year’s playoff devastation — 24 goals allowed in five games against Colorado — strained his self-confidence, leading to the proclamation that he put too much weight on himself and would need to focus more on the team game. But on the eve of these playoffs, he explained he was going to go after a shutout every game, and that last year’s talk of putting less weight on his own shoulders had not made it to Round 1.

“I scrapped that real fast,” Hellebuyck said. “That is what makes me me, that is what I feed off, and I’m going to continue to do that because I know that gives this team the best chance to win.”

By the nature of the position, goalies have a lot of time to think, and that’s not always a good thing. Athletes in any sport are at their best when they enter a “flow state,” allowing their body to react to the play naturally.

Mike Valley played goalie professionally, coached the Dallas Stars’ goalies from 2009-17, and has co-authored several books focusing on the mental aspects of the position. He understands the mind of a goaltender as well as anyone.

“If you’re in the NHL, you’ve been working your whole life for these moments,” Valley said. “When it’s not playing out the way you want it to play out, of course you get some doubt. You’re wondering how this is happening when you’ve done everything to be ready.

“You’re going to tell everybody you’re not thinking about it, but you can’t lie to yourself. You have these thoughts in your mind, regardless of if you’re Connor Hellebuyck or anyone in any other sport or occupation. What are people saying? Why is this happening to me? How did that go in? All of those little moments of thought interrupt the patterns of you being able to play the way you’re supposed to play.”

There’s research that suggests a lack of confidence or anxiety can lead to slower reaction times, and make it harder for the brain to process stimuli and respond quickly. These challenges aren’t unique to Hellebuyck, but the stresses could be magnified in his case because of his prolific regular-season numbers and the mounting rhetoric around his previous playoff performances.

“It’s not for a lack of trying,” Valley explained. “You almost try too much. Your brain is over-thinking, and it literally stops your body from doing what it needs to do. …There probably aren’t many people who care as much as he does, or wants to deliver for his team as much as he does. That’s not the problem.”

It’s likely Hellebuyck entered this postseason in a great state of mind, coming off his best season yet and ready to prove the doubters wrong. What happened on the ice that caused a shift?

“I felt like I was playing my game and moving well and seeing the puck well,” Hellebuyck said. “And then bad bounces happened or breakdowns happened and you start chasing results a little bit and in the back of your mind the results start creeping in. It makes you wonder is what you’re doing enough?”

Hellebuyck plays a unique style of goaltending. He has built his entire game around his two biggest strengths: his size and his brain.

At 6-foot-4, 207 pounds, Hellebuyck takes up a lot of the net. He maximizes that advantage by playing a more passive style from deeper in his crease, which gives him less ground to cover to remain on angle with the puck as it moves around the offensive zone. That, combined with his exceptional play-reading skills, means he’s rarely out of position.

Goaltending becomes more difficult for everyone in the playoffs, when teams send hoards of bodies to the front of the net to create screens, deflections and overall chaos in front of the goalie. There’s a chance that Hellebuyck, with his specific style, is hurt more by this change than other goalies.

He moves less than most goalies, both in navigating around the crease and in his head movements, which are minimal. While this typically helps him track pucks, because his eyes are so quiet, it has looked like Hellebuyck isn’t as adept at fighting to see through screens in this postseason. At times, it looks like he accepts screens and relies solely on positioning to make the save, rather than bobbing, weaving and battling through the traffic to regain sight of the puck.

That, combined with the fact that Winnipeg has allowed more of these types of shots than most teams, is not a recipe for success. Several of the Jets’ defensemen are on the smaller side, suggesting they’re not as equipped to defend the net front and clear sight lanes for their goaltender.

“I think there’s a blueprint of how teams want to play us,” Hellebuyck said. “That being said, I think we have an answer for it.”

The data backs up this theory. The Jets have allowed 11 goals this postseason that were the result of a screen, a deflection or both, which is the highest of any team in the playoffs.

It’s interesting to note that three of the four worst teams when it comes to this statistic are Winnipeg, Los Angeles and Tampa Bay. It’s no coincidence that the three Vezina Trophy finalists – Hellebuyck, Darcy Kuemper and Andrei Vasilevskiy – all had terrible statistics in the first round and two of them bowed out early. Even St. Louis’ Jordan Binnington, who is lauded as a clutch playoff performer, gave up four goals by tip and/or screen in Game 7 on Sunday.

There’s no question these are incredibly talented goalies – most of whom already have their name on the Stanley Cup – but it’s hard to stop pucks you don’t see.

It’s also no coincidence that goalies who haven’t had as many screened shots go in are putting up great numbers. Carolina allowed three goals by way of screen, but all three were after Pyotr Kochetkov took over for the injured Frederik Andersen. With Andersen in net, the Hurricanes allowed zero screened goals, and he leads the NHL in playoff save percentage (.936) and goals saved above expected (6.89).

This isn’t meant to excuse Hellebuyck entirely. Dealing with screens and deflections is part of playing winning playoff hockey, and the goaltender is as responsible for it as his defenders. At the same time, if his teammates can create better lanes for him to see the puck, it will help build his confidence and rhythm within the game, which could create a snowball effect in a positive direction.

“It’s all about quieting the mind,” Valley said. “Thoughts create muddy water.”

As a result, it was no longer just the incredibly difficult screened shots that were finding their way past Hellebuyck. In the first round, he made uncharacteristic mistakes and allowed goals that he otherwise wouldn’t. At times, it looked like he was fading away from shots, caught guessing rather than remaining patient and reading the game. Taking that extra inch of depth while challenging the shooter can be the difference between saves and goals, and Hellebuyck hasn’t looked confident in the crease.

On this goal by Blues rookie Jimmy Snuggerud in Game 5, Hellebuyck was frozen by a shot fake and left drastically off his angle.

SNUGGY SNUCK IT IN THERE. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/mvxnbEqrYd

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) May 1, 2025

This is the type of positioning error we simply do not see from him. He set his feet as Snuggerud began the shot fake, and never shuffled over as the shooter drifted to a completely different angle, leaving space to the short side.

It also looked like he second-guessed himself, going for a glove save when he could’ve stuck his pad out. When confident, Hellebuyck makes one shuffle to his left to cut off any shooting angle, drops into a wide butterfly and allows the shot to hit his left pad.

In this case, likely because he can feel that he’s off his angle by the time the shot comes, Hellebuyck drops into a narrow butterfly and tries to react rather than block. His read looks tentative, reaching his glove at the puck rather than staying tall and flaring his pads out wide. That ends up creating the hole that the puck finds.

Hellebuyck’s heavy workload is yet another factor. He tied for the league lead with 63 games this seasom, and has topped 60 appearances in each of the last four seasons. No goalie with 60 regular-season starts has won the Stanley Cup since Jonathan Quick in 2012, and the game has changed a lot since then.

Perhaps fatigue is why he doesn’t look quite like the Hellebuyck we’re used to seeing in the regular season. His 542 starts since 2016-17 aren’t just the most of any goalie, they’re 42 clear of everyone else. That’s a lot of miles on his legs in a position at which it’s tough to feel confident if you’re chasing the play.

On this goal by Robert Thomas in Game 4 the Jets made so many mistakes it’s easy to lose count, highlighting that it hasn’t just been a Hellebuyck problem, but a team problem. Even still, on this play Hellebuyck doesn’t look like the patient, cerebral goalie who led the league in every metric this season.

The Blues can’t be stopped today! 👊 pic.twitter.com/0XijctMW1l

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 27, 2025

As Thomas walked in, it appears Hellebuyck guessed that he would deke to his forehand, or shoot to the short side. Hellebuyck shifted his weight and momentum by slightly leaning to his left in preparation for that move, so when Thomas cut back to the backhand he was unable to explode to his right, left out of position and helplessly stabbing at the puck with an uncommitted poke check.

Doubt is a dangerous thing in sports, but Hellebuyck isn’t the first player this has happened to, and he certainly won’t be the last. In his case, he has a strong foundation, both in his goaltending technique and in his inner circle of support. He has all the tools to change this narrative.

It wasn’t that long ago that Sergei Bobrovsky was viewed in the same light — as a talented goalie who couldn’t get it done in the biggest moments. He has since proven how silly that notion was all along, leading Florida to back-to-back trips to the Cup Final, and hoisting the trophy last summer.

This is only the narrative until Hellebuyck changes it.

Perhaps the historic comeback and ensuing double-overtime victory in Sunday’s Game 7 is exactly what Hellebuyck needed. He didn’t have to be particularly great in that game to get the victory, but maybe that’s the point. The realization that perfection isn’t needed could prove to be even more valuable than standing on his head.

Hellebuyck stopped the last 13 shots he faced in Game 7. None were bigger — or more encouraging — than a save on Colton Parayko’s transition chance midway through the first overtime.

It wasn’t the most visually impressive save. It wasn’t flashy, and that’s why it was encouraging. Hellebuyck has been saying, since he was a child, that he wants to be the big and boring goalie. On that play, he read the Blues’ rush well. He identified the trailer (Parayko) early on, stood his ground waiting for the back pass, then confidently pushed out to the top of his crease and set his edges early. By the time Parayko fired, Hellebuyck was patiently waiting for the shot, with his arms connected to his body and no holes to shoot at.

He was big. He was boring. He made it look easy, which is what we’re used to seeing Hellebuyck do.

“The weight of the world is off my shoulders,” Hellebuyck said Tuesday. “And that had nothing to do with anyone else. It’s just the mental grind of that series. That being said in that moment, it was a second chance for me. I just had to go and play my game and do what I do best. I don’t need to do everything. I just need to play my game and do the best I can and bring it every single night.”

Given the way things have gone, it’s certainly fair to be skeptical of his chances heading into the second-round series against the Dallas Stars, who scored the third-most goals in the NHL this season. Even if he didn’t look it over those last six games, this is still soon-to-be a three-time Vezina trophy winner. That’s a club that includes only Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek — and likely Hellebuyck.

“He’s still a great goalie,” Valley said. “It’s just that greatness hasn’t been able to come out yet. It’s just a matter of time for a guy like that, that it does, but it takes something to interrupt that pattern.”

(Photo: James Carey Lauder / Imagn Images)