AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Good riddance Hellebuyck, part infinity

Having shown the hockey world he has no integrity and even less honour, I’m probably not the only Jets fan in Manitoba that would have liked Connor Hellebuyck to suffer some consequences for turning his back on the Jets, but getting his wish to be traded proves that sometimes good things happen to bad people.

For example, look no further than Hellebuyck’s beloved President Trump, someone who is blindly supported by his cult despite starting an unnecessary war in Iran, killing alleged drug runners instead of taking them to trial, gleefully showing video of a mentally disturbed man getting killed by a tiger (in real life), trying to overturn an election he lost and, well, you get the idea.

There has never been anyone so corrupt, so evil, so ignorant, so racist, and such a fake Christian, yet the convicted felon somehow managed to get re-elected.

As someone who went back on his word with the ownership, who stabbed his teammates in the back by reneging on a long-term contract he willing signed, I think many Jets fans would have liked to see Hellebuyck pay more of a price for being a prima donna, entitled, selfish American.

Now that Hellebuyck has been traded to the New Jersey Devils, several random thoughts come to mind.

1. He lied when he said he just wanted to win. Duh, every athlete wants to win. If he truly wanted to win, he would have stayed with the Jets, who would have had one of the best goaltending tandems in the league.

2. Stuart Skinner is already making Jets fans forget about Hellebuyck. He is a good goaltender who wants to play in Winnipeg.

3. Given how often Hellebuyck choked in the playoffs and the fact he didn’t want to be here, Jets fans can’t worry for one hot second what he does in Jersey.

4. Statistically, the odds of him taking the Devils to the Stanley Cup final are very thin. In his 11 seasons with the Jets, he only led them past the first round once. For someone laughably called the “best goalie in the world,” that is a dreadful playoff record. He frequently wasn’t even the best goalie on Portage Avenue.

5. Hellebuyck’s camp inferred that threats to his family prompted his desire to be traded. Until we see those threatening texts, I simply do not believe him. Until those texts are made public, we can assume they don’t exist and were a false pretext for a trade request. Jets fans are passionate – they may have taken some shots at Hellebuyck after the U.S. beat Canada in the Olympics – but death threats? Give me a break. That is not credible until he proves it.

6. Hellebuyck can now happily let his MAGA freak flag fly. He has no moral qualms about Trump’s multiple felonies, potential war crimes, his financial and military support of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, or his ongoing threats to make Canada the 51st state. For obvious reasons Hellebuyck couldn’t show his true MAGA colours in Canada, where Trump is loathed and despised by the vast majority of Canadians, but now that Hellebuyck will be living in the excited states, he is free to support his historically corrupt president however he wants.

7. Hellebuyck is a storied regular season goalie, but hockey is a team sport. Individual awards in a team sport, for the regular season, are almost meaningless compared to playoff success. Skinner has twice taken a team to the Stanley Cup finals. Connor never took the Jets to the finals in 11 seasons.

8. The so-called “best goalie in the world” never – not once – singlehandedly won a playoff series the Jets had no right winning. Think of Jakub Dobeš for Montreal last year. The Habs were wildly outplayed by Tampa in game seven, yet Dobeš stole that game and that series as a rookie. Hellebuyck didn’t do that once in over a decade.

He is now free to break the hearts of Devils fans.

Thanks for (almost) nothing.