Chevy defends decision to go with Hellebuyck

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This article was published 10/04/2017 (3077 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff went all in with the youth movement for the 2016-17 NHL season, giving opportunities to a number of first- and second-year players to flourish at the game’s highest level.

Although he hit home runs with players such as Patrik Laine, Nikolaj Ehlers and Josh Morrissey, his decision to go with 23-year-old Connor Hellebuyck in net didn’t pay the same dividends.

When asked about his decision to choose Hellebuyck as his No. 1 guy the Jets GM simply said it was a matter of seeing where the young goaltender was at in his development, and that it wasn’t one simply made on a whim.

“You also need to understand that you need to take steps to move forward and you have to make decisions,” said Cheveldayoff during his season-ending press conference Monday at the MTS Centre. “You don’t sit and try and say I hope – you make that decision, you surround people with the best opportunities you can and it’s not unlike a skater, you have to give them that opportunity to grow.

“The decision that we made to move forward with the goaltending and how we chose to do it this year, it was not done in a vacuum. It was done with lots of conversation within the group, understanding that if we didn’t do it at that point in time that one year forward we would be sitting here today and saying can Connor Hellebuyck take us to that next level? Is he going to be that No. 1? If we didn’t give him the opportunity to play the games this year we don’t know.”

Hellebuyck posted a respectable 26-19-4 record, but his goals against average (2.89) and save percentage (.907) were both below league average. He also needed a break midway through the season to reset, an opportunity that came about with the re-calling of Ondrej Pavelec from the Manitoba Moose.

Knowing what he knows now, Cheveldayoff was asked if he felt confident heading into next season with Hellebuyck at the helm, or if he would be exploring other ideas, whether through trade or free agency.

“Every veteran goaltender has gone through these trials and tribulations in their career and in order to stay in the league those veterans have learned how to get better,” Cheveldayoff said. “What direction we choose to go, we’ll look at all the different options that are available to us. It’s a very unique year in the sense of the expansion draft and the possibilities that no one really knows how those are going to play out so those are something you talk about.

“We will look at a lot of different scenarios to see if there’s a chance to push it to move forward. Whether it’s a veteran or a young guy, these are things that I can’t sit here and tell you in 100 per cent certainty what’s going to happen because there are so many different things that can unfold but we’re going to look at all the different options.”