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The Peg's Perfectionist - Aug. 30 2018 - Yearbook - Jared Clinton
IT WAS ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO that Chuck Hellebuyck had his eyes opened to the way his son’s mind functioned. Chuck was standing inside the pro shop of a Michigan rink, one of the many he frequented while carting around two hockey-mad sons, when a gaggle of grade-school boys flocked to the stick rack.
While the other boys were going gaga over the one-piece player sticks with their three-figure price tags, Chuck’s little goaltender was calmly picking up twig after twig, looking at all the blades, eyeing them down the sides and the front, inspecting and examining each one with precision. Chuck was perplexed. “What are you looking at this for?” he said to his son. “You’re a goalie. Go look at the goalie sticks.”
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Undeterred, Connor picked up a yellow stick with a massive twist and pointed it directly at his father. “Look at that blade, Dad,” he said. “Where do you think the puck’s going to go if someone shoots it?”
Chuck paused, wondering where his 10-year-old son was going with this. “Unless they screw up the shot,” Chuck answered, “that puck is going up.”
“Exactly,” Connor said. “I want to study every one of these blades so when I see it I know where the puck is going.”
It’s a tale a proud hockey dad loves to tell, even if his son is tired of hearing it. Now all grown up, playoff beard and all, 25-year-old Connor Hellebuyck verified its occurrence, chuckling at the kind of not-this-again-Dad anecdote he’s surely heard dozens, if not hundreds, of times. What it tells us about the Winnipeg Jets’ star goaltender is that what we know about him now has been there all along. Hellebuyck’s studiousness is unquestioned, his attention to detail indubitable, and his off-ice effort has been the catalyst to his newfound on-ice success. In fact, Hellebuyck, who has risen from fifth-round draft pick out of the North American League to end-of-season NHL all-star in just six seasons, has kept that same academic approach to stopping shooters all these years later. “I’m looking at tendencies,” he said. “How people shoot, how they hold their stick, how the stick blade looks, how their release is. Little things that are the same every single time.”
As tedious as that might sound, it’s the kind of thing Hellebuyck does for pleasure. Sure, he spends part of his off-season fishing, he likes to hit the links, and he plays the odd video game to wind down – he’s got the gear, too, given his older brother Chris, a former NCAA Div. III player, creates custom controllers for a living – but studying film and bettering himself as a goalie is a passion. Truth be told, he’s bordering on insatiable in his desire to advance his game. “Everything I do, I have to master it,” Hellebuyck said. “Whether it’s golf or fishing or whatever I’m doing. I have to master it. I have this drive that I just need to.”
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As it pertains to goaltending, though, Hellebuyck’s singular focus on becoming the best dates back nearly a decade. Although Chuck and his wife, Erin, are their sons’ greatest supporters, they were practical in their approach to their dreams of becoming big-league hockey players. Thus, the Hellebuyck boys were encouraged to have a Plan B. For Chris, his fallback from an early age was to follow in his father’s footsteps with a career in electronics. The younger of the Hellebuyck boys, however, took a different approach. “Connor made the varsity team when he was a freshman and told me, ‘Dad, I don’t have a backup plan.’ And I said, ‘That’s OK. It takes time to figure it out,’” Chuck said. “But he said, ‘No, I don’t want a backup plan. It’s going to distract me. I’m going to make it. I want to make it. I don’t want distractions.’ At that point, I kind of knew you’re not going to stop him.”
EVERYTHING I DO, I HAVE TO MASTER IT. WHETHER IT’S GOLF OR FISHING OR WHATEVER I’M DOING. I HAVE TO MASTER IT
– Connor Hellebuyck
It helps that his hunger is reinforced with a competitive fire that may be the only thing embedded in the Hellebuyck DNA deeper than the family’s fine attention to detail. To hear Hellebuyck tell it, there’s no arena in which he, his brother and sister won’t compete. It’s a constant battle of one-upmanship, one that can make even a quiet evening quite the cutthroat affair. “My wife says the Hellebuycks hate to lose,” Chuck said. “You don’t want to play games with us. If it’s Monopoly, we’re going to play to win. So, he carries some of that.”
Never was Hellebuyck’s ambition more evident than this past season. Signed to a one-year deal last summer, he was challenged by the Jets to take the starting job and unseat newly inked veteran Steve Mason. Hellebuyck did just that. After putting up 44 wins, with a 2.36 goals-against average and .924 save percentage, he found himself at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas as the runner-up for the Vezina Trophy. He had the league’s fifth-best save percentage, set the Jets’ single-season wins record and broke Mike Richter’s mark for the most wins in a single season by an American-born goaltender. As for Mason? Well, he was dealt away less than a year after being acquired. His usefulness had run its course in Winnipeg with Hellebuyck as the clear-cut No. 1 goalie.
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With Hellebuyck locked in after signing a six-year, $37-million contract, and the Jets primed for several playoff runs over that span, it’s safe to bet on him maintaining his standing as a Vezina contender. As much as Hellebuyck’s success has been propelled by his perfectionist nature and need to outshine the competition, he has an unshakeable confidence in his abilities, buoyed by his single-minded focus on becoming the best. “It’s really the belief,” he said. “Not just thinking every day, but believing every day that what you’re doing is right and that you’re going to achieve what you’re looking to achieve. It’s not going to happen right away, but if you truly believe it, it’s going to happen.”