Jets goaltender Hellebuyck cements spectacular campaign with Hart, Vezina awards

Connor Hellebuyck will have to make room for some more hardware.

The Winnipeg Jets goaltender won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player Thursday. He also captured the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top netminder for a third time.

Hellebuyck is the first goalie to claim the Hart since Montreal’s Carey Price a decade ago. The 32-year-old from Commerce, Mich., topped the stats page this season with a 47-12-3 record, a .925 save percentage and a 2.00 goals-against average to go along with eight shutouts.

Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov and Edmonton Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl were the other Hart finalists. Kucherov won the Ted Lindsay Award as league MVP last week in a vote among members of the NHL Players’ Association.

Hellebuyck joins a list of Hart-winning goaltenders that also includes Roy Worters (1928-29), Chuck Rayner (1949-50), Al Rollins (1953-54), Jacques Plante (1961-62), Dominik Hasek (1996-97, 1997-98) and Jose Theodore (2001-02).

The Hart is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, while the Vezina is decided by the league’s 32 general managers.

Hellebuyck’s impressive regular-season numbers, however, once again didn’t translate to the playoffs.

Despite picking up two shutouts, he won just six of 13 starts in posting an .866 save percentage and a 3.08 GAA as the Jets beat the St. Louis Blues in a dramatic seven-game series before falling 4-2 to the Dallas Stars in the second round.

Hellebuyck, who was the starting goaltender for the United States at February’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament when the Americans lost to Canada in a knife-edged final, had an .870 save percentage in the 2023-24 post-season after putting up a .886 mark the previous spring in consecutive five-game losses in the first round.

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Kucherov led the NHL with 121 points in 2024-25 and tied Colorado Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon for the most assists with 84. Draisaitl led the league with 52 goals and tied for third in points with Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak with 106.

Vasilevskiy went 38-20-4 with a .921 save percentage and a 2.18 GAA for Tampa, which lost to the Florida Panthers in five games in the opening round of the playoffs. He also picked up six regular-season shutouts.

Kuemper owned a 31-11-7 mark — including five shutouts — with a .921 save percentage and a 2.02 GAA in his first season with Los Angeles. The Kings beat the Oilers twice to open their first-round series before losing four straight.

Kings’ Kopitar wins 3rd Lady Byng Trophy

Los Angeles Kings centre Anze Kopitar has won the Lady Byng Trophy.

The trophy is awarded annually to the NHL player who best combines sportsmanship with on-ice ability as judged by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

The 37-year-old Kopitar won the award for the third time after finishing second on the Kings with 67 points (21 goals, 46 assists) in 81 contests while recording only four penalty minutes.

He received 50 first-place votes en route to earning 856 voting points, ahead of Tampa Bay Lightning centre Brayden Point (793) and Vegas Golden Knights centre Jack Eichel (782).

Kopitar also won the award in 2015-16 and 2022-23.

The Kings’ captain, who is spending his off-season in his native Slovenia, learned of his latest award win from his children, who handed him drawings of the Lady Byng before giving him a replica trophy.