ESPN: Three Teams in Trade Talks for Hellebuyck as Friday Deadline Nears

The Winnipeg Jets have started a season without their franchise goaltender, and nobody at the club will say when that changes. Connor Hellebuyck remains suspended indefinitely for failing to report to training camp after going public with a trade request last month, TSN reports, and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff says the timeline for trading him is still “undefined.” The Jets opened against Boston on Friday with Stuart Skinner in net, and Hellebuyck surrendered his first game cheque the same night.

The Hellebuyck story has run for weeks without a date in it. It has one now. October 23 is the day the suspension ends, the day his $8.5 million cap hit goes back on Winnipeg’s books, and the day the Jets have to decide what a returning goaltender who still wants a trade actually is: a starter, a reserve, a trade asset in the building, or a player being paid to stay home. Friedman listed that last option himself, and said he does not think anyone wants it.

What is the October 23 development? (Update, October 23)

The two sides may simply not decide on Friday. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported Thursday that the Jets and Hellebuyck could agree to delay his physical until after Sunday’s Heritage Classic so the outdoor game does not get swallowed by the suspension saga, with the trade talks continuing in the background. The full story is covered separately in the Hellebuyck physical-delay piece: the procedural gate, the Dreger and Johnston reporting, the fan fury, and what happens if no delay is agreed.

What changed on Monday? (Update, October 20)

The market arrived, four days before the deadline. ESPN reported on Monday that at least three teams remain involved in trade discussions for Hellebuyck, that a deal is not guaranteed before his suspension expires on Friday, and that if Winnipeg has not moved him by then, the Jets are expected to begin paying him while continuing to keep him away from the team, in the Field Level Media report carried by Reuters. That moves the paid absence from the possibility Friedman raised on Saturday to the expected fallback. ESPN puts the forfeiture at nearly $39,000 a day and nearly $800,000 through Monday, and reports he has kept skating in Michigan. This site has followed that running total since the fan-built Hellebucks tracker started counting it in public: the tracker counts to today, the projections count to Friday, and both now point at the same Friday decision.

What did the Jets say on Monday? (Update, October 20)

More than they have said in weeks, and narrower than the reporting. Arniel, in comments carried by NHL.com, pushed back on the idea that the room has closed the door. “I don’t think our whole group is saying, ‘Oh, we don’t want you. We don’t want you,’” he said. “Right now, everybody’s waiting to see. The players are waiting. We’re waiting. I’m waiting.” He named the four routes the club holds: a trade, paying Hellebuyck to stay home, a conditioning stint in the minor leagues, or putting him back on the team, and he said general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff is handling it. Perfetti set the condition from the players’ side: the room wants guys who want to be here, and if Hellebuyck comes back and recommits to the group, that is good news. None of that is a welcome-back announcement. It is a door described as open, on the record, on the same day a report said three other teams are trying to take the decision out of Winnipeg’s hands.

Why can Winnipeg afford to wait until Friday? (Update, October 20)

Because the crease has held. The Jets are 4-2-2 without their franchise goalie, NHL.com reports, with Skinner at 3-0-2, a 2.76 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage, and Stevenson at 1-2-0. A team bleeding goals would have settled this in September. Instead the week runs on a fixed schedule: St. Louis away on Tuesday, Dallas away on Thursday, the suspension expiring Friday, and Montreal at home on Sunday in the Heritage Classic at Princess Auto Stadium. Friday does not resolve this story; it reprices it. Until Friday, Winnipeg holds a suspended player who costs nothing and a market working against a public deadline. From Saturday, on ESPN’s reporting, the club either has its goalie back in the room or is paying nearly $39,000 a day for him to stay in Michigan while the talks continue into a season already eight games old. The next fact in this story is a transaction, a roster move, or a man walking into the Jets’ building, and it lands by the weekend. In the meantime the league’s other early-season goalie stories keep turning at the opposite end of the experience scale, from Cole Knuble’s debut week in Philadelphia to Ottawa’s captaincy shuffle, where Thomas Chabot is out and Jake Sanderson returns on Wednesday.

What did Friedman report? (Update, October 17)

That the suspension is scheduled to end next Friday, and that the sequence behind it is different from the one most fans have been following. Hellebuyck did not spend October refusing to come back. On Pro Hockey Rumors’ account of Friedman’s report, he notified the Jets before the season started, on October 2, that he intended to end his absence and report to the team. The club’s answer rested on the collective bargaining agreement. Article 15.13(c)(v) covers a player who returns after missing training camp without permission: he “shall be subject to a disciplinary suspension of reasonable length.” Reasonable has no definition in the clause. In this case it has settled at about three weeks, and it ends on October 23. theScore’s version carries the same date and the same October 2 notice.

Friedman also recorded the silence around the story. Neither Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff nor Hellebuyck’s agent Ray Petkau would comment.

How much has the suspension cost him? (Update, October 17)

More than $38,000 a day in forfeited salary, and more than $900,000 in total by the time it ends, on Pro Hockey Rumors’ arithmetic. Outlets citing the fan-run tracker at hellebucks.com put the running total above $700,000 during Saturday’s coverage. The figures differ because one is a projection to Friday and the others are a running count, and this site already covers that tracker in its own right in the Hellebucks tracker story. What no source disputes is the shape of the number: close to a tenth of his season salary, for a player who said on October 2 that he was ready to report.

His contract is the reason the end date matters beyond one roster. He is signed through 2031 at an $8.5 million cap hit, with a full no-movement clause, as a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy. A goalie with that pedigree and that contract does not drift back onto a roster quietly, which is the point the NHL salary cap explainer on this site makes about every large deal: the cap hit returns whether the relationship has or not.

What do the Jets have to do by Friday? (Update, October 17)

Make room, for a start. Winnipeg’s roster is full at 23 players, Pro Hockey Rumors reports, so adding Hellebuyck means removing someone. The easiest route the coverage names is placing Vladislav Namestnikov, who is out week to week, on injured reserve. That route leaves Winnipeg carrying extra defencemen and a third goaltender with only 12 healthy forwards, which is a workable week and a poor month.

Then there is the hockey decision. Winnipeg was 4-1-2 heading into Saturday’s game against Carolina, with Stuart Skinner starting and Clay Stevenson, a waiver pickup, behind him. The Jets have been winning without the goalie who won the Hart Trophy in 2025. That record is the club’s leverage and its problem at the same time: every good Skinner start lowers the urgency to trade, and the suspension’s end raises the urgency to decide. The end date also lands two days before Winnipeg hosts Montreal in the Heritage Classic, which gives the week a public stage whether the club wants one or not.

Deadlines are what this negotiation has lacked. Cheveldayoff has said he will not rush a trade and has had no adequate offers, theScore reports, and Hellebuyck holds the no-movement clause that controls any destination. A suspension with no public end date let both positions sit still. October 23 removes that cover. If no trade lands by Friday, someone has to say out loud what Hellebuyck is to the Jets now, and neither side chose to say it on Saturday.

What happens next? (Update, October 17)

A trade before Friday, a return on Friday, or a paid stay at home after Friday. Those are the three doors Friedman and the coverage describe, and the week will be read through them: any roster move that clears a spot early reads as preparation for a return, and any sudden trade reporting reads as the deadline working. The next hard facts will be a Jets roster transaction or a statement from either camp, and this page will be updated when one lands.

Why is Hellebuyck holding out?

Because he asked to leave and the exit has not happened. Hellebuyck requested a trade after the 2025-26 season and made the request public late in the offseason when no deal emerged, Daily Faceoff reports. When he did not report to camp, the Jets suspended him without pay.

The stalemate has a specific shape. Winnipeg will not give away a three-time Vezina winner under contract until 2030-31, and TSN’s Darren Dreger has reported the club has not received a single offer it considers fair value. Hellebuyck, for his part, holds a full no-movement clause, so he controls the destination list too. Two sides can both be reasonable and still produce an empty crease on opening night, which is what happened.

What did the Jets’ general manager actually say?

That everyone involved knew this could drag. “When I was first made aware of the situation, the conversations that Connor’s representation and myself had were very clear and explicit that this could take a while,” Cheveldayoff told Dreger, in the interview reported by TSN. “What ‘a while’ means I guess, is still undefined.”

Cheveldayoff has repeated that Winnipeg intends to remain a contender and wants any deal to improve the team now, TSN reports. That stance is the second half of the problem: the Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2025, then became just the fifth team in league history to miss the NHL playoffs the following year. A front office that sells its best player for futures after that collapse would be announcing a rebuild it has not admitted to.

Which teams could actually trade for him?

The list is shorter than the talent suggests. Buffalo held talks with Winnipeg before the June draft and nothing came close, TSN reports, and Pierre LeBrun has pointed to the Sabres, Carolina and Utah as possible landing spots. The Hockey News reports that Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has said San Jose checked in, and that Carolina remains among the suitors.

The Edmonton idea shows the constraints. The Oilers’ goaltending has been shaky, but Hellebuyck’s list reportedly includes no other Canadian teams, The Hockey News reports, and his $8.5 million cap hit, in the range of the highest-paid NHL players, needs money going back the other way in almost any deal.

What is Winnipeg’s asking price?

Players who help immediately, headlined by picks and a top-six forward. Daily Faceoff reports the mandate from Winnipeg is win-now pieces with some futures acceptable, drawing the comparison to how Columbus handled Kirill Marchenko before moving him for a first-line return. That return had its first public grading on Tuesday, when Fantilli called keeping Marchenko a nightmare avoided and Marchenko scored on his Columbus return. The Hockey News, summarising reporting on the price, puts it at a first-round pick, a top-six forward, preferably a center, and a goaltender or prospect.

That price explains the silence. Buyers are being asked to pay for the 2025 version of Hellebuyck, the Hart Trophy winner and Vezina winner, while his most recent season was the weakest of his career: a .895 save percentage and 2.86 goals-against average in 57 games, TSN reports. Goalies are also the hardest stars to move mid-drama, because only a handful of teams need one, can afford one, and are on his list at the same time.

How long can the Jets hold their nerve?

Longer if Skinner keeps giving them a chance. Skinner, signed in July, made 26 saves in the 4-3 overtime loss to Boston, Reuters reports, and Winnipeg then beat Detroit 3-2 on Sunday, the game that deepened the Red Wings’ own trade-request turmoil around Dylan Larkin and Simon Edvinsson. Clay Stevenson, claimed off waivers from Washington, gives the Jets a second option, and The Hockey News notes Friedman wondering whether a good start from the pair would soften Winnipeg’s demand for a goaltender in return.

The leverage shifts with every week. A strong Jets start makes the front office patient; a losing streak with shaky goaltending makes the empty crease the only story in town. Cheveldayoff’s word, undefined, currently covers both outcomes.

What happens next in the Hellebuyck standoff?

Watch the waiver-claim goalies and the cheque book. Hellebuyck loses money for every game he misses, which historically shortens holdouts, and the losses are now public arithmetic: a fan-built tracker counts his forfeited salary at about 45 cents a second, past $399,000 on Friday morning. He also knows the Jets cannot replace a goaltender of his level with what is currently in the building if the season turns. The next real development is an offer, a softening on either side, or Skinner playing well enough that Winnipeg stops sounding like a team waiting by the phone.

It is a strange opening week for the league’s senior stars to be making news off the ice: in Washington, Alex Ovechkin announced this season will be his last, a departure planned a year out and announced to teammates first. At the other end of the goalie story, Semyon Varlamov started for the Islanders after 676 days and two partial knee replacements, a return nobody in Winnipeg’s crease dispute would dare to script. Hellebuyck’s exit, whenever it comes, is the opposite in every way: unplanned in public, unresolved in private, and timed by a word his own general manager chose, undefined.

The list of teams with a reason to call grew by one on Saturday. The New York Rangers announced that Igor Shesterkin is out for the season and their net now belongs to 24-year-old Dylan Garand, and USA Today’s first look at their options named Hellebuyck as the theoretical fit, while noting that his contract running to 2031 and Shesterkin’s running to 2033 make two star deals in one crease impractical beyond this emergency season. A new name on the edge of the list is not a bid, but it is the first time the Rangers’ situation has been connected to Winnipeg’s price in print.

October 23 update: The standoff this page tracked has resolved — the Jets traded Hellebuyck to the Devils on Friday morning, the day his suspension was set to lift. See the full trade breakdown: Mercer, Daws, Bjugstad, Command and two picks to Winnipeg.