Hellebuyck Lands in New Jersey on a Five-Year Cup Bet

The Winnipeg Jets traded Connor Hellebuyck to the New Jersey Devils on Friday, the same day his unpaid camp suspension expired. New Jersey sent Dawson Mercer, Nick Bjugstad, Nico Daws, prospect Alexander Command, a 2027 seventh-round pick and a 2029 second-round pick the other way.

Sunny Mehta, in his first season as Devils general manager, is placing a five-year wager that the three-time Vezina Trophy winner can turn a stingy defense into a Stanley Cup team. Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is betting Mercer, a teenager still in Sweden, and a heavier draft board can replace the best goalie Winnipeg has drafted in 20 years.

The club acquired goaltender Connor Hellebuyck without moving Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt or a first-round pick. That is the shape of the bet: pay a high hockey price, keep the core, and ask a 33-year-old who has never won a Cup to finish the job.

RAISE HELLE!

Connor Hellebuyck is a New Jersey Devil: https://t.co/HCehRGOQI5 pic.twitter.com/dZGNQR16m1

— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) October 23, 2026

Mehta Sold a Starter in June and Bought a Better One

On June 30, Mehta traded Jacob Markstrom and forward Angus Crookshank to the Florida Panthers, the club where Mehta had worked under Bill Zito. New Jersey got three forwards back and did not retain salary on Markstrom, whose $6 million cap hit was heading into a two-year extension.

THE MARKSTROM RETURN

• Evan Rodrigues: A top-nine forward coming off 11 goals and 31 points in 69 games, and a piece of Florida’s recent Cup teams.
• Jesper Boqvist: A bottom-six forward who had already played in New Jersey and was on a two-year deal.
• Ben Steeves: A restricted free agent who scored 23 goals in 72 American Hockey League games with Charlotte.

That deal told Mehta what a starting goalie actually costs, and it also emptied the crease. Jake Allen and Daws opened the season as the tandem. Through 10 games the Devils were 6-4-0, averaging 3.30 goals per game, and still sitting on a.876 team save percentage, tied for 23rd in the league.

The rest of the sheet did not look like a team that should be hunting a wild-card spot. New Jersey entered the weekend with a 59.74% shot share at 5-on-5, a hair behind the Carolina Hurricanes at 59.79%. The Devils were allowing the second-fewest high-danger chances per 60, the third-fewest scoring chances per 60 and the 10th-fewest shots per 60, while ranking 12th in goals per game. Their 5-on-5 save percentage sat at 89.95%, 13th-lowest in the league. Allen was 4-2-0 with a 3.15 goals-against average and an.883 save percentage. Daws was 2-2-0, 2.78 and.874 before he was put in the trade.

Before the season Mehta had said he did not want to sink heavy assets into a position that swings so much from year to year. Hellebuyck is the exception he decided to buy anyway: five seasons left, $8.5 million a year, and a resume that includes the Hart Trophy in 2025, three Vezinas, two Jennings Trophies and a gold medal with the United States at the 2026 Olympics.

The Holdout That Ended With a Trade

Hellebuyck made the destination the point as far back as April. After Winnipeg missed the playoffs a year after winning the Presidents’ Trophy, he said the only thing left on his list was a Stanley Cup and asked, out loud, how he was supposed to get there. He requested a trade privately over the summer, then went public on Aug. 27 through his agent, Ray Petkau.

I have tried to handle the situation quietly and respectfully while giving the organization time to explore its options. With training camp approaching, I felt it was important to publicly confirm my request. My position has not changed. I believe moving on is the best path forward for me and my family.

Connor Hellebuyck, statement released by agent Ray Petkau

He did not report when camp opened. The Jets suspended him without pay on Sept. 16. He later told the club, before the Oct. 2 opener, that he intended to report, but missing camp without permission left Winnipeg a disciplinary window under the collective bargaining agreement, and that window ran to Friday.

FROM TRADE REQUEST TO NEWARK

1. Aug. 27, 2026: Hellebuyck publicly confirms he asked the Jets to move him.
2. Sept. 16, 2026: Winnipeg suspends him without pay for failing to report to training camp.
3. Oct. 2, 2026: He notifies the Jets he is willing to report before the season opener.
4. Oct. 23, 2026: The unpaid suspension expires and the Devils close the trade.

By Friday he had forfeited more than $925,000 of his $7.5 million base salary for 2026-27. Cheveldayoff said the process had not been fun, that Hellebuyck chose how to handle it, and that the club had to answer. He also said he wished the hockey deal had been done four months earlier, when the first serious calls started.

“When Sunny got serious, he got serious real quick,” Cheveldayoff said. “There was no beating around the bush with each other. We kind of laid our cards on the table and said this is what it’s going to take.”

What the Devils Sent to Winnipeg

New Jersey kept its foundational skaters and still had to meet a price Cheveldayoff would accept on the day the leverage of the suspension ran out. Mercer is the hockey player in the return. Command is the pick that makes the trade a first-round conversation. Daws and Bjugstad are the depth and the cap filler.

THE PACKAGE THAT CLOSED FRIDAY

Mercer is a three-time 20-goal scorer who had 20 goals and 42 points last season in 18:13 of ice time. That scoring line would have ranked him fourth on the Jets in goals and fifth in points a year ago, on a club that leaned on Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi for 40% of its goals. He has one more year of team control after this season. Expecting him to fix a 2.60 goals-per-game attack, 25th in the league, by himself is a stretch. Asking him to be a second-wave option is the actual ask.

Bjugstad had 6 goals and 9 points in 61 games last season and is still recovering from offseason pectoral surgery. Cheveldayoff said he is out long term, that New Jersey had him on long-term injured reserve, and that Winnipeg will simply carry him on injured reserve. He is in the last year of his contract. If the Jets slide out of the wild-card race, he is a March rental chip, not a winter solution.

New Jersey Is Betting Against a 24-34 Playoff Record

The regular-season case is not the argument. Since 2015-16, Hellebuyck ranks first among NHL goalies in minutes (36,400) and shutouts, and second in wins and goals-against average. He is 345-208-55 with a 2.58 GAA, a.916 save percentage and 45 shutouts in 625 games, all of them with Winnipeg. He has 30 wins in a season six times. The 47-win year in 2024-25, when he also posted a 2.00 GAA, a.925 save percentage and 8 shutouts, sits one win behind the 48-win seasons of Martin Brodeur and Braden Holtby.

Last season was the ugly one: 23-23-11, a 2.86 GAA and a.895 save percentage in 57 starts, on a Jets team that missed the playoffs. The Olympics were the other tape. He put up a 1.18 GAA and a.956 save percentage in Milan, including a 41-save gold-medal game against Canada, the first U.S. men’s hockey gold in 46 years. At the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off he led the event at 1.59 and.970.

The number New Jersey cannot draft around is the postseason one.

HELLEBUYCK, REGULAR SEASON VS. PLAYOFFS

He has started 58 playoff games and gone 24-34. After that 2018 run to the Western Conference Final, the rest of the file is thinner. The loud objection after the trade was not that New Jersey overpaid in a vacuum. It was that a goalie can own the regular season and still leave a team’s ceiling where it was in May. Mehta is betting the Devils’ chance quality changes that math, because Hellebuyck will not have to steal every night behind Luke Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce, Jonas Siegenthaler and Johnathan Kovacevic.

He will also have to shake off a missed camp and 10 games of unpaid idle time. The Devils host the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday. How soon he is ready to start has not been announced.

Mercer, Command and 28 Picks for a Franchise Goalie

Winnipeg is 4-3-3 without him, sitting on a minus-3 goal differential after a four-game losing streak, and Cheveldayoff said the skid had nothing to do with the timing. The Jets have used Stuart Skinner, signed July 1 on a two-year, $7.5 million deal ($3.75 million AAV), in tandem with Clay Stevenson, claimed on waivers from Washington on Sept. 28. Skinner is 3-1-3 with a 2.67 GAA and a.912 save percentage in 7 starts. Stevenson is 1-2-0, 3.08 and.893 in 3 starts, with 5 career NHL games on his record coming into the year. Daws has 55 NHL games and has already worked as a tandem goalie, which is the job he is being handed.

Cheveldayoff said he is very comfortable with what we accomplished over the long process, and that a goalie market is its own animal: you find out who has a real need, then you find out what they will actually move. He talked Mercer as a former center who can still take draws if the Jets want that, and as a 24-year-old who now gets to play around Connor and Scheifele. After the trade, Winnipeg holds 28 draft picks over the next three years.

Command is the long piece. New Jersey took him 12th overall in the 2026 draft, a 6-foot-1 left-shot center from Danderyd, Sweden, out of Orebro HK. In 2025-26 he scored 17 goals and 27 assists for 44 points in 30 J20 Nationell games, then had no points in a 6-game SHL look. This season he has 7 goals and 5 assists for 12 points in 6 J20 games and still no points in 6 SHL games. Cheveldayoff said the prospect had already texted Viggo Bjorck, another young Jet, before their call. Command’s club deal in Sweden runs through 2027-28, so Winnipeg is buying time, not a roster center for November.

“At some point in time, and I think starting in the next 10 minutes here when this press conference is done, this is over, our chapter,” Cheveldayoff said.

Five Seasons at $8.5 Million Run Through 2031

Hellebuyck is in year 3 of a seven-year contract worth $59.5 million he signed on Oct. 9, 2023, with an $8.5 million cap hit through 2030-31. That is five seasons, including this one, on a deal that still carries a no-movement clause in 2026-27 and becomes a 10-team approved list from 2027-28 through 2030-31. He had to sign off on Newark. He will be 38 when it expires.

THE BET IN FOUR LINES

• The term: Five seasons remaining at $8.5 million a year, through 2030-31.
• The cash this year: $7.5 million base, with more than $925,000 already gone to the unpaid suspension.
• The clause: Full no-movement rights this season, then a 10-team list.
• The draft path: Fifth round, 130th overall, in 2012, a kid from Commerce, Michigan, who had been playing in Odessa, Texas.

New Jersey has missed the playoffs 11 times in the past 14 seasons and has not won a playoff round since 2022-23. It has not made the postseason in consecutive years since a 13-year run ended in 2009-10. Mehta did not trade the Hughes brothers, and the Hellebuyck move is also a signal to Quinn Hughes, a pending 2027 unrestricted free agent in Minnesota, that the organization around Jack and Luke is trying to look like a Cup roster. That is a side effect, not the contract.

Hellebuyck told Winnipeg in the spring that a Cup was all he had left. The Jets drafted him, rode him to a Hart Trophy, three Vezinas and a Presidents’ Trophy, and still could not get him there. New Jersey just paid Mercer, a first-round center and a working NHL goalie to find out whether a better defense is the missing piece, or whether 24-34 is the file. He has not yet taken a shift in a Devils jersey. That is when the wager starts to keep score.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Was Connor Hellebuyck Suspended by the Jets?

Winnipeg used a club discipline clause that applies when a player misses training camp without permission and then tries to come back. Article 15.13(c)(v) of the NHL-NHLPA collective bargaining agreement says that player is subject to a disciplinary suspension of reasonable length, which in this case ran about three weeks from the Oct. 2 notice to Friday, Oct. 23, on top of the unpaid time that started Sept. 16.

Does Hellebuyck Still Have a No-Movement Clause in New Jersey?

Yes for 2026-27. The clause is a full no-movement lock this season, which is why he had to approve the Devils as a destination, and it steps down to a modified no-trade list of 10 teams for 2027-28, 2028-29, 2029-30 and 2030-31.

When Can Alexander Command Leave Sweden for the NHL?

Not on a Jets timetable this winter. He extended with Orebro HK on May 14, 2026, through the 2027-28 season, so Winnipeg controls his NHL rights while he keeps splitting J20 and SHL minutes as an 18-year-old born June 16, 2008.

What Did New Jersey Get When It Traded Jacob Markstrom?

On June 30, 2026, the Devils sent Markstrom and Angus Crookshank to Florida and received Evan Rodrigues, Jesper Boqvist and Ben Steeves, with no salary retained on Markstrom’s incoming $6 million cap hit, a deal that both cleared a starter and set the market Mehta used four months later on Hellebuyck.