- Chris Johnston says Connor Hellebuyck will waive his no-movement clause for “a variety of teams”
- Winnipeg has not liked the offers yet, but the Jets are not boxed into one destination
- Read below for the clause timeline, the contract math and the two teams already attached to him
Connor Hellebuyck is not asking the Winnipeg Jets to thread a needle.
The goaltender went public with his trade request Thursday afternoon, and a few hours later Chris Johnston of The Athletic filled in the part that decides how fast this thing moves. Johnston was laying out what separates this request from the others the league has seen lately.
“One key difference with the Connor Hellebuyck trade request compared to others around the NHL is that he’s willing to waive his NMC for a variety of teams. The offers haven’t been to Winnipeg’s liking just yet, obviously, but they’re not totally handcuffed.”
That last line is the whole ballgame. Most stars who ask out hand their general manager a two- or three-team list and dare him to make it work, which is exactly the corner recent trade requests have painted their clubs into. Kevin Cheveldayoff gets to shop instead.
The holdup is price, not permission. Winnipeg has spent the summer asking for the sun, the moon and the stars, and nobody has come close enough to it yet.
The clause itself puts a clock on all of this. Hellebuyck’s full no-movement protection covers the 2026-27 season, then it softens into a modified no-trade clause in 2027-28 that lets him submit a 10-team block list. His seven-year, $59.5 million extension carries an $8.5 million cap hit and runs through 2030-31.
Buffalo and Carolina are the two clubs that have been firmly attached to him since July. The Sabres got deep enough into it that Hellebuyck was prepared to waive for them before the talks stalled. Carolina has the cap space and the draft capital, sitting on four first-round picks over the next three years.
Camp opens in a few weeks, which is the reason he stopped waiting. Take a look at the breakdown of Thursday’s request:
Winnipeg has three weeks and a long list of possible partners. What it still does not have is an offer worth saying yes to.
