WINNIPEG — The Winnipeg Jets were looking forward to facing former teammate Connor Hellebuyck and then putting him in the rearview mirror. 

That will all have to wait. 

When the Jets host Hellebuyck and the New Jersey Devils at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; TSN3, MSGSN), Jake Allen will be in the visitor’s net with Hellebuyck as the backup. 

That news, announced Sunday night by Devils general manager Sunny Mehta, did not sit well with Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel. 

“To me, it goes back to the ownership, it goes back to the fans, it goes back to the core guys that have been with ‘Helly’ from the very beginning, that he kind of left on,” Arniel said Monday. “That’s the part for me that is hard. He just gave up on us, and it would be nice to be finally done with this and all it does is drags it out, and nine more game from now, we’re going start into it and talk about it again here. That’s the biggest disappointment for me.” 

The nine-game comment is a reference to the Jets playing at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Nov. 28. 

But the game Tuesday was the one almost everyone in Winnipeg had circled on their calendar since Hellebuyck was acquired by the Devils on Oct. 23 following his offseason trade request and his suspension from the Jets after he failed to report for training camp. 

“I can feel the frustration of the fans,” Arniel said. “I can feel the frustration just in the fact that we wanted to get this put to bed. That’s the biggest thing. Now it’s not getting put to bed here. It’s going to linger, but it is what it is. We still have to beat the New Jersey Devils, and that’s the single biggest thing. They’re a very good team right now and we’re going to have to make sure we’re doing everything we can. It would have been great to beat him if he was in net, but he’s not. So, we’ve got to go out and do what we need to do.”

Jets forward Kyle Connor said he never even considered the idea of Hellebuyck not playing in Winnipeg. 

“I didn’t even think that was a possibility,” Connor said. “So, I was pretty surprised. I thought he was playing for sure.”

The call to not start Hellebuyck was not the goalie’s decision, according to Mehta. 

“This has been an organizational decision for us that we debated at length,” Mehta said in a statement. “Connor Hellebuyck was adamant that he felt a duty to play on Tuesday in Winnipeg. However, in our estimation, playing in this game would potentially give us a reduction in our expected win probability.”

Speaking after a 4-0 win at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday — the  fifth straight victory for the Devils (13-5-0) — Hellebuyck insisted he wanted to play in his former home but that the decision was out of his hands. 

“We definitely had a conversation and I told them my thoughts on it and they told me theirs, and at the end of the day, I have to listen to them and I can only push so hard,” Hellebuyck said. “I was adamant that I want to play, but it is what it is.”

Jets captain Adam Lowry, who was Hellebuyck’s teammate from 2015-16 until the trade, said he was “surprised” by the decision. 

“But they probably had a lot of discussions, a lot of things that went into it that I’m not privy to,” Lowry said. “So, it’s hard to pass judgment on what went on. He’s not playing. We would have been excited to face him and I’m sure he would have been excited to face us and there would have been a lot of buildup around the game, but we’re focused on continuing to play well and looking to get another two points.”

Arniel expects things to continue to drag out and questions about facing Hellebuyck to spring up again until the teams meet again Nov. 28. Tuesday is the only time the Devils visit Winnipeg this season. 

When asked if he felt Hellebuyck owed it to his teammates and the fans of Winnipeg to play in the game, Arniel said,  “I’m not going to speak on what Helly owes.”

“At the end of the day, we just want to get this game over and done with and play him, let the fans react how they’re going to react. We just have to go out and get our two points, and if it’s against him, well, it’s going to be Jake Allen know. I don’t care about his opinion on things. I just wanted this to end.

“This has been throughout the summer, it’s been through our training camp, it’s been all the way through the trade and now it’s continued on. I was just kind of hoping it would be done after tomorrow night.”  

Hellebuyck had a stellar career with the Jets after they selected him in the fifth round (No. 130) of the 2012 NHL Draft. He made his debut in the 2015-16 season and over the next 11 seasons would go 345-208-55, winning the Vezina Trophy voted as the best goalie in the NHL three times (2019-20, 2023-24, 2024-25) and the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 2024-25. Winnipeg qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs seven times during his tenure, reaching the Western Conference Final in 2017-18. 

Last season, he helped lead Team USA to the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, defeating Team Canada 2-1 in overtime in the gold medal game. The Jets (35-35-12) missed the playoffs, finishing eight points behind the Los Angeles Kings for the second wild card from the West. 

Hellebuyck signed a seven-year, $59.5 million contract ($8.5 million average annual value) on Oct. 9, 2023, but after Winnipeg missed the playoffs last season, he told Jets management he wanted to be traded.

On Aug. 27, he released a statement saying he’d requested a trade from the Jets. He failed to report to training camp on Sept. 16 and was suspended by the team. Hellebuyck was traded the day the suspension was to end. 

Since arriving in New Jersey, he’s 5-0-0 with a 1.96 goals-against average and .913 save percentage. He made 23 saves in the win against the Maple Leafs on Sunday. 

After playing in Winnipeg, the Devils have a home-and-home set with the Washington Capitals on Thursday and Saturday; it’s believed Hellebuyck will play both games against the Metropolitan Division rival. 

Allen, 36, is 9-11-3 with a 3.18 GAA and .884 save percentage in 24 games against Winnipeg. The 11 regulation losses are the most he’s had against any NHL team. 

As the visiting team backup goalie, Hellebuyck will likely not be visible to fans during the game. He is expected to either sit in the tunnel behind the visitors’ bench out of view or in the Devils’ video room. 

When he was the backup with Winnipeg, Hellebuyck would watch the game in the Jets’ video room. 

The only opportunity Jets fans may get to see him is during warmups. And if Winnipeg had planned to run a tribute video for his return, those have likely been shelved. 

The game comes with the Jets (7-8-3) on a three-game winning streak, which was extended when they pulled out a 4-3 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday with forward Mark Scheifele scoring the winning goal on the power play with 1.6 seconds left in the third period. Winnipeg held a 3-0 lead entering the third and gave up three goals in a span of 4:05 in the last half of the period. 

The streak started at the Montreal Canadiens a week ago, when Winnipeg battled back from a four-goal deficit late in the third with four goals in 2:06, and then won 5-4 in overtime. 

“I would have loved to play against him,” Lowry said. “We’d all be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to the opportunity. Like I said countless times, he’s a good friend of ours and it’s always fun going up against buddies or ex-teammates. You just want to best them.

“I think the atmosphere would have been great whether fans were upset, or they wanted to thank him, whatever. It would have been an emotional night, and it would have been a lot of fun.”