By winning the MVP, he becomes just the eighth different goalie to ever win the award, joining a list that includes only Roy Worters, Chuck Rayner, Al Rollins, Jacques Plante, Dominik Hasek (who won it twice), Jose Theodore and Carey Price.
He is the first goalie to win it since Price did so during the 2014-15 season and only the fourth goalie to win it since the league expanded beyond six teams in 1967 (Hasek, Theodore and Price are the other three).
The only downside to all of these honors for Hellebuyck is that he is still going to face criticism for another disappointing playoff showing that resulted in him getting benched three times in the first round, before settling in and playing better in the second round. While his overall numbers, including his save percentage and goals-against average, have been among the best in the regular season over the past three seasons, his playoff numbers have taken a significant drop over that same time period. It’s a problem that both he and the Jets have to solve if they are going to become a serious Stanley Cup contender.
Fair or not, elite players are ultimately judged by what they do in the playoffs, and in today’s “ring culture,” regular-season performance doesn’t always get the same respect it should if there is not a championship in that trophy case to validate all of it.
But even with that being the case, Hellebuyck’s regular-season performance is one of the single biggest reasons the Jets have won as many games as they have over the past three years — and one of the biggest reasons why they finished this season with the best record in the NHL. While the Jets have a good roster, it was also a flawed roster that at times could be dependent on Hellebuyck to win them games.
They do not have the season they did without him.
He finished with a .925 save percentage, a league-best 2.00 goals-against average and a league-leading eight shutouts.
Great goalies can turn bad teams into playoff teams, playoff teams into contenders, and contenders into championship-caliber teams.
Bad goalies do the exact opposite.
That sort of impact is why they should win the MVP more often than they do, especially if the award truly is based on the idea of “value.”
The voters got it right in this case with Hellebuyck. Nobody did more to elevate their team in the regular season than he did.
