Cheveldayoff Holds the Cards After Hellebuyck Skips Camp

Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff suspended Connor Hellebuyck on Wednesday after the three-time Vezina Trophy winner skipped the first day of training camp. Speaking Thursday at Hockey For All Centre, Cheveldayoff treated the holdout as a contract problem, not a countdown.

Five years remain on the deal Hellebuyck signed in 2023. Stuart Skinner is already in the crease. The bid that moves him still has to work for Winnipeg.

Cheveldayoff Will Not Be Rushed

Camp opened Wednesday with medicals in the morning and a team dinner that night. Hellebuyck attended neither. Elliotte Friedman said the goalie had told the club he would not be there and had until that afternoon to report on time. After the deadline passed, Cheveldayoff called Hellebuyck’s representatives and suspended him for failure to report, citing the standard player’s contract in the CBA.

The club put the news out that night.

The Winnipeg Jets announced today they have suspended goaltender Connor Hellebuyck for failure to report to training camp.

General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff will address the media at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday, Sept. 17th, at hockey for all centre.

— Winnipeg Jets PR (@WpgJetsPR) September 17, 2026

Thursday morning, with dozens of players on the ice, Cheveldayoff was asked to explain the one who was not. He would not litigate Hellebuyck’s reasons. “In my mind, it’s irrelevant,” he said. “Connor’s made the choices and we’ll just deal with them moving forward.”

THE WEEK CAMP OPENED WITHOUT HIM

1. April 18, 2026: Hellebuyck, in his exit interview, questions whether Winnipeg can get the pieces it needs to win a Cup.
2. July 1, 2026: The Jets sign Skinner to a two-year contract.
3. August 27, 2026: Hellebuyck confirms a trade request he says he made privately several months earlier.
4. September 16, 2026: He skips medicals and the team dinner; the Jets suspend him that night.
5. September 17, 2026: Cheveldayoff meets the media and says he has no ticking clock.

Preseason starts Saturday, Sept. 19, in Edmonton. The regular season opens Oct. 2 against the Boston Bruins at Canada Life Centre. Cheveldayoff said he has been trying to make a trade “for a long period of time here now,” including around the June draft, and will keep trying.

The $7.5 Million Stays With the Club

Hellebuyck, 33, is in year 3 of a seven-year, $59.5 million extension he signed Oct. 9, 2023, with Cheveldayoff. The cap hit is $8.5 million every season through 2030-31. This year’s actual paycheck is $7.5 million in base salary, with no signing bonus left on the sheet.

He has a full no-movement clause through 2026-27. On July 1, 2027, that protection becomes a modified no-trade clause, and he can file a 10-team list. Until then, Winnipeg cannot move him unless he agrees to waive. That is destination control. It is not a lever that forces a sale.

HELLEBUYCK’S REMAINING CONTRACT

The suspension is procedural. If he is still out when the regular season begins, Winnipeg does not pay him and the contract does not count against the cap. Cheveldayoff said as much Thursday. The money and the cap slot come back only if he reports or if a trade closes.

That is the part of the holdout that does not travel well. Sitting is expensive for him and cheap for the club, and every day that runs toward Oct. 2 makes that split clearer.

Why the Trade Market Has Stayed Cold

Darren Dreger said this week that the offers so far have been “terrible,” and that Hellebuyck will not waive his no-move clause to join any of the six other Canadian teams. Cheveldayoff pushed back on the word “terrible” as hype, then described the same market. “We’re talking about moving Connor Hellebuyck, a player that has been very important to this franchise and is a very good player in the National Hockey League,” he said. “We expect that a level of return would be commensurate to that.”

He also said he does not want “future assets” as the main piece coming back. The Jets are trying to win now, he repeated, even after a lost season. Last year Hellebuyck went 23-23-11 with a 2.86 goals-against average and a.895 save percentage in 57 games, career lows, while Winnipeg finished 35-35-12 and missed the playoffs by eight points. A year earlier he went 47-12-3 with a 2.00 goals-against average, a.925 save percentage, and eight shutouts in 63 games, won the Hart Trophy and a third Vezina, and backstopped a 56-22-4 Presidents’ Trophy club.

Buyers are bidding on the down year, the age, the term, and a no-move clause that lets Hellebuyck veto the map. Buffalo was linked to talks around the draft. Carolina was described as having offered a first-round pick and defenseman Alexander Nikishin in June. None of those packages, Cheveldayoff said, has reached the point where both clubs can live with it.

WHAT ANY DEAL STILL HAS TO CLEAR

• His consent: The no-move clause holds through this season, so he has to waive for the destination.
• A Canadian wall: Dreger said Hellebuyck will not waive to stay in Canada, which takes six clubs off the board before talks start.
• A goalie back: Cheveldayoff does not want the return built mainly of picks and prospects.
• No fire sale: He said he is not working under a clock, and he will not take a deal that fails his own players and fans.

The loud read after the suspension was that offers will get worse because Winnipeg looks trapped. That is backwards. A club that has already replaced the starter and parked an $8.5 million cap hit can wait. A 33-year-old who is not being paid cannot wait as cheaply, and a buyer who smelled panic on Wednesday heard the opposite on Thursday.

Skinner Is Already Taking the Starter’s Work

Winnipeg signed Skinner on July 1 to a two-year, $7.5 million contract with a $3.75 million cap hit. Cheveldayoff said then that Hellebuyck’s cloudy status was not the reason, and that Skinner was a July 1 target in his own right. The 27-year-old split last season between the Edmonton Oilers and the Pittsburgh Penguins after a midseason trade. He went 23-17-9 with a 2.92 goals-against average, an.888 save percentage, and two shutouts in 50 games, and he has taken Edmonton to two Stanley Cup Finals.

He is the starter at this camp. Gabriel Vilardi, who has faced him since their AHL days, called him diligent and said the room will welcome him. Behind him the Jets have Thomas Milic, who played three NHL games last season, plus Domenic DiVincentiis, Isaac Poulter, and Alex Worthington. DiVincentiis, 22, was 13-16-2 with a 3.03 goals-against average and a.896 save percentage in 34 games with the Manitoba Moose and has yet to play in the NHL.

If a trade brings back an NHL goalie, that player can share the net with Skinner. If it does not, Winnipeg can keep an internal backup, make a separate deal, or take a goalie off waivers. The crease is not empty. That is the fact other general managers have to price in when they try to buy Hellebuyck at a discount.

Alexei Yashin Sat a Whole Season and Came Back

The last NHL player of this profile to be suspended for failing to report was Alexei Yashin in 1999. Ottawa sat him for the entire 1999-2000 season. He returned in 2000-01 and played for the Senators anyway. Twenty-seven years later, the mechanism is the same. A contract does not dissolve because the player stops showing up.

Hellebuyck’s case is heavier on paper. He has spent all 11 of his NHL seasons in Winnipeg after the club took him in the fifth round, 130th overall, in 2012. Since 2015-16 he leads goalies in games (625) and starts (615) and ranks second in wins (345), with a.916 save percentage. He is one of four goalies, with Dominik Hasek, Martin Brodeur, and Patrick Roy, to win the Vezina at least three times since general managers began voting on it in 1981. He also has two Jennings Trophies. That résumé is why Cheveldayoff keeps saying the return has to match the player.

It is also why a light offer is an insult the Jets can refuse. Yashin’s year off did not rewrite Ottawa’s leverage, and a year off would not rewrite Hellebuyck’s term. The years stay on the page until someone buys them at Cheveldayoff’s price or Hellebuyck decides to play.

What the Olympic Fallout Did to His Family

The wire version of this fight is that one bad season soured a star who had called himself a Jet for life. That is too thin. After the 2024-25 peak, Hellebuyck backstopped the United States to Olympic gold at Milano Cortina in February. He then attended a White House event where he was named for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Online abuse followed, some of it aimed at his wife, Andrea, and their children.

In March he said the blowback his wife was getting was “just not fair,” and that she and the kids had done nothing wrong. Cheveldayoff said Thursday that the club’s security staff, and police, got involved after the Olympics, with extra patrols requested so players would feel safe. “Obviously what they endured, they shouldn’t have to,” he said. He would not guess how much that weighed on the trade request, and he would not walk through Hellebuyck’s list of acceptable teams.

Hellebuyck made his trade request public on Aug. 27 through his agent, Ray Petkau, after what he said were months of private talks.

Several months ago, I privately requested a trade. I have tried to handle the situation quietly and respectfully while giving the organization time to explore its options. With training camp approaching, I felt it was important to publicly confirm my request. My position has not changed. I believe moving on is the best path forward for me and my family.

Connor Hellebuyck, statement released by agent Ray Petkau, Aug. 27, 2026

On April 18 he had already drawn the map in blunter terms. “It’s hard. It’s hard. Can you get the pieces that you need? Will the players come? These are always questions that you have in Winnipeg,” he said. “I’ve made it my home and I like it here, but the majority of the League doesn’t feel the same way.” Cheveldayoff’s reply on Thursday was that the team’s thought process has not changed. “We are still trying to win, period.”

Five Years Remain and No Side Deal Exists

Hellebuyck, on the day he signed in 2023, said he was “ready to be a Jet for life and bring a Cup to this city” and that he “truly believed we can get it done here.” Cheveldayoff on Thursday killed the idea that there was a gentlemen’s agreement to move him if the club slipped. “A contract is a contract in the National Hockey League, period,” he said. “There are no side agreements, there’s no gentlemen’s agreements. The league doesn’t allow for that.”

For me I have to try and keep a level head. I can’t let emotion come into play in any regard. It’s about trying to find something that can push this organization forward in a different fashion with a different player or players. Connor Hellebuyck’s part of our family until he’s not part of our family.

Kevin Cheveldayoff, general manager, Thursday at Hockey For All Centre

Asked if Hellebuyck would ever play another game for Winnipeg, Cheveldayoff said no doors are closed. “In my estimation, he’s a player that’s under contract and he’s a player that’s under contract for five years. At the end of the day, that will be his choice.” Mark Scheifele, who signed the matching deal the same day in 2023, told reporters the players on the ice are focused on getting ready for the year.

Saturday in Edmonton, that year starts without him. Skinner will be in the net. The $7.5 million stays in Winnipeg until Hellebuyck reports or until someone meets a price Cheveldayoff has already spent the summer rejecting.