ST. PAUL, Minn. — Bill Guerin, the Minnesota Wild president and general manager, came down the press elevator, walked down a short hallway and made a right toward the Wild locker room.
It wouldn’t have been surprising if he made a left and went directly to the Winnipeg Jets’ room instead.
Guerin is double dipping as the United States GM for the 2025 4-Nations Face-off and 2026 Winter Olympics. While we know Connor Hellebuyck will be on both teams, the USA Hockey hierarchy will have a tough decision about which goalie will get the nod as the No. 1 between Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger and, probably Jeremy Swayman.
But if Guerin had to make the decision Monday night based on what he witnessed, you can bet he would have told Hellebuyck — the two-time Vezina Trophy winner and likely front-runner to win a third at the end of this season — that he won the starting job outright with his performance during the Jets’ 4-1 win over the Wild.
Is now a good time to remind everyone that this is only year one of a seven-year extension for Connor Hellebuyck?
Coming off of a Vezina Trophy in 2023-24, he’s opened the season with a 15-2-0 record, .929SV%, 2.06 GAA, and has 9.22 GSAx per @NatStatTrick.
— Connor Hrabchak (@ConnorHrabchak1) November 26, 2024
Hellebuyck made 38 of his 43 saves in the first 36 minutes and made 3.63 saves above expected, according to MoneyPuck, to lift the Jets to a seventh consecutive win over a Wild team that seems incapable of beating the top teams in the Central Division.
Sure, the Wild have been competitive in their three losses (0-2-1) against the Jets and Stars this season. But the only thing that matters is results, and the Wild are 0-12-2 against the Jets, Stars and Avalanche — three of the best teams in the Central — in the past 13 months.
And in a league where the Wild are going to have to likely meet these teams in the first two rounds of the playoffs, well, beating them just once in a while would be fairly good for their psyche.
That could explain why the Wild looked and sounded so shell-shocked after Monday’s loss.
They played with impressive pace in the first 20 minutes. They fired 22 shots at Hellebuyck. Yet, other than Jake Middleton’s game-opening goal for the second consecutive meeting with the Jets, the Wild couldn’t buy another goal.
Yes, you read that right.
In 121 minutes of hockey against Hellebuyck and the Jets this season, the only Wild player to score is … Middleton — a veteran defenseman with 17 goals in 259 career games.
Jake Middleton opens the scoring for Minnesota pic.twitter.com/kvK5rdr5Ad
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) November 26, 2024
Not good enough.
“Obviously, you get up for this game,” said Matt Boldy, who had four shots. “It’s a division game. It’s a team that’s ahead of us that’s had our number. We want to win every game. It doesn’t matter who is first. That’s a good team over there and we gotta find a way to get going and find ways to win these games.”
Hellebuyck was sensational, but when the Wild gave up the go-ahead goal to former Wild forward Nino Niederreiter, it just seemed to sap their energy and left them dejected.
They had 39 shots through the first 36:08 of the game and five in the last 23:52.
“It’s always tight games against these guys, I feel like,” said Marcus Johansson, who had a point for the fifth time in the past six games. “We wanted to get the upper hand tonight and show that we can play with everyone. But I mean, even though we did show that, we didn’t get the two points. We didn’t get the win and that’s frustrating.”
In games against these top teams that routinely beat them, the Wild can’t afford to do foolish things.
The Wild did just that on Niederreiter’s winner.
Middleton came in on a breakaway and couldn’t get off a good shot. The Jets countered quickly. Alex Iafallo got into a confrontation with Joel Eriksson Ek behind the Jets goal line, and for some reason, Yakov Trenin decided to join the fray.
As the play went the other way, Trenin had to see his teammates were being outmanned four against three in the Wild end, Eriksson Ek and Iafallo again got into it at the Jets blue line. Trenin again stopped and turned toward the Eriksson Ek and Iafallo jostling rather than get on his horse and backcheck like a bandit.
The shift ended with Niederreiter scoring the winner.
Nino Niederreiter finishes this play off the rush to give the #NHLJets a 2-1 lead! ✈️ pic.twitter.com/VDmJamIzfO
— Winnipeg Sports Talk (@SportsTalkWPG) November 26, 2024
“Watching it live and kind of in between periods, I think there’s some discussion points we can have on that situation,” coach John Hynes said diplomatically of Trenin, who has one assist in 21 games. He had his seventh consecutive shotless game on a night when 16 teammates had at least one shot.
In hindsight, Minnesota would have liked a whistle there and coincidental minors to Eriksson Ek and Iafallo, but play was allowed to continue and it cost the Wild.
“I didn’t see what was happening down in the offensive zone, but yeah, that sucked,” Middleton said. “I wouldn’t even call it a breakdown. There was just other s— going on, and it ended in an odd-man situation, and they scored a go-ahead goal, and kind of bored us in the third for the rest of the game.”
Marcus Foligno took a holding penalty in the offensive zone with 7:31 left in the third and Iafallo and Neal Pionk, both products of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, combined for a power-play backbreaker and 3-1 Jets lead.
Pionk, who assisted on Niederreiter’s winner, also assisted on Iafallo’s second goal of the game.
Alex Iafallo x2 🚨
The #NHLJets PP2 strikes, and they hold a 3-1 lead here in the third period. pic.twitter.com/LoheBE0S8p
— Connor Hrabchak (@ConnorHrabchak1) November 26, 2024
“Disappointing,” Middleton said. “But we threw a lot (at Hellebuyck). That was probably the best first period we played all year, as far as not giving up shot opportunities and funneling pucks to the net. Tip your cap to Connor. He played really well, but we didn’t play the same game in the third.”
The Wild deserved a lot better than a 1-1 game going into the second and a 2-1 deficit going into the third.
“We had a lot of grade-As, shot attempts, zone time, all those things,” Hynes said.
Added Boldy about Hellebuyck: “He’s a good goalie. He’s the best goalie in the league right now, in almost every category. So, you gotta keep doing it, keep going and try to find chances. And we weren’t able to tonight.”
The Wild have a busy week with three games in four days starting Wednesday night in Buffalo. So Hynes wanted to take the good out of Monday’s game and quickly move forward. The Wild will take Tuesday off before their flight to Buffalo. Fourth-line winger Jakub Lauko didn’t play in the third period due to a lower-body injury, so Travis Boyd will likely play his second game in the past three.
As disappointing as the latest defeat was to the Jets, the reality is if the Wild play like Monday, they’ll win more than they lose and bury more pucks than they don’t.
But Hellebuyck, who became the fourth goalie in NHL history to win 15 games in his first 17, was that good. He saw everything. Was clean on everything and made all sorts of tremendous stops.
“My toe was hot. My glove was hot. I felt good,” Hellebuyck said. “I was seeing (the puck). The guys were allowing me to see lanes and picking up sticks and picking up rebounds. Great team effort tonight.”
Asked if Guerin came to congratulate him, Hellebuyck said, “No comment.”
(Photo of Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck stopping the Wild’s Jake Middleton on a breakaway: Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)
