Darren Dreger says the Winnipeg Jets are probably headed toward a Connor Hellebuyck trade, and a goalie may not come back.
Dreger floated it on Saturday's edition of First Up. The timing stings, with Winnipeg's regular season opening Friday night at home against the Bruins.
His read on where the front office lands was blunt: "it does seem that eventually Winnipeg is probably gonna get to that place."
The place he means is simple enough. Take the best offer on the table, and if no goaltender comes back, pivot to a better prospect and draft picks.
Read that again. Winnipeg would be shopping the owner of the fourth-highest cap hit among NHL goaltenders without insisting on a starter in return.
Igor Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Thatcher Demko are the only ones ranked ahead of him. Demko matches his $8.5 million number exactly.
That explains the hedge in Dreger's comments. A team able to swallow that kind of money for a goalie is usually a team that just decided its own starter isn't good enough.
Kevin Cheveldayoff now owns the hardest call of his tenure
Kevin Cheveldayoff has run this front office since June 2011. Few decisions across that stretch will land with more weight in the locker room than this one.
Trading an elite starter for futures is like selling your furnace in October because someone offered a nice gift card. Looks fine on paper. Then January shows up.
And it's a bad idea. Picks and prospects don't stop pucks, and the Jets have $12 million tied up in Kyle Connor on a deal built for winning now.
So who owns the crease if this happens?
The early schedule offers no soft landing. After Boston visits, Winnipeg heads out for a back-to-back in Detroit and Pittsburgh on October 4 and 5.
Colorado comes to town two nights later. The Avalanche beat the Jets 5-2 on September 25 in preseason, the second loss of a two-game skid.
Scott Arniel's group has gone 1-2-1 in exhibition play. Nobody panics over September hockey, but nobody wants to open October wondering who's between the pipes by Christmas either.
Dreger's comments came without a timeline or a named suitor. That's the part that should worry Jets fans most, because an open-ended rumour tends to follow a goalie around every road trip.
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Which leaves Winnipeg in an awkward spot for puck drop Friday: rolling out its franchise goalie while the rest of the league starts wondering how long he'll be wearing that sweater.
Should the Jets trade Connor Hellebuyck even if no goalie comes back in the deal?
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