WINNIPEG — Connor Hellebuyck feels the adjustments he made to his game may have led to a drop in his performance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Winnipeg Jets goaltender struggled at times, particularly on the road; he finished 0-6 with a 5.06 goals-against average and an .809 save percentage. Winnipeg was eliminated by the Dallas Stars in the best-of-7 Western Conference Second Round in six games.
In the first round, the Jets eliminated the St. Louis Blues in Game 7, but Hellebuyck was pulled from three games in the series. He allowed 16 goals on 66 shots in those three games (.758 save percentage).
“I think what I learned the most is you can’t overtweak your game,” Hellebuyck said on Tuesday. “You just can’t abandon your game. Maybe make some tweaks here and there, but nothing huge. Nothing drastic. And you’ve just got to go out there and have fun and realize that bad bounces do happen and sometimes, there is a little bit of a luck factor in hockey. Just trying to control that chaos.”
Hellebuyck, who is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the best goalie in the NHL, and could win it for the third time, said things settled down in his mind before the second round against the Stars. Winnipeg was eliminated with a 2-1 overtime loss at Dallas on Saturday.
Hellebuyck had a 3.85 GAA and .830 save percentage in the first round but improved with a 2.20 GAA and .905 save percentage in the second.
“The first round was a roller coaster and a mental grind,” Hellebuyck said. “Once we got through that, the weight of the world came off my shoulders and I started going back to playing my game. Everything that I was studying in the previous round started to come together back to my game. … You might be able to find some tweaks but you don’t want to find a ton of tweaks in your game. It’s one little thing here and there. You kind of ride with that for a little bit. The second you overgrip it and start overthinking, that’s when you lose your edge.”
Shutouts in Games 2 and 5 against Dallas helped Hellebuyck’s overall numbers in these playoffs (a 6-7 record, a 3.08 GAA and an .866 save percentage), but they were a far cry from his regular-season performance.
“If you start thinking the game and start overthinking the game, then you lose the ‘it’ factor,” Hellebuyck said. “Once I started having fun again … the level of fun that I’m accustomed to, that’s when my game got good and I just started playing. That’s what I am going to live and die by.”
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