No longer resolute, Jets look ridiculous in trading Hellebuyck to New Jersey

The Winnipeg Jets knew this wasn’t going to be a great year, because none of their years are great. They’re all somewhere between okay and terrible. Then, out of nowhere, they were given an absolute gift by Connor Hellebuyck.

Hellebuyck was already a spent force in Winnipeg. He was a regular-season superstar. The kind of guy who could turn it on for his national side, but couldn’t maintain interest once there was money on the line. A weird sort of socialist, now that you think about it.

The problem wasn’t motivating Hellebuyck. It was being roped to him for five more years. He was just good enough to ensure Winnipeg’s permanent mediocrity.

Then Hellebuyck decided to go on strike. Hallelujah! Problems solved. Multiple.

He’s been at it for two months, letting the team off every hook. All of a sudden, the Jets aren’t bad because they were built that way. They’re bad because of this Jonah over here. He’d cursed the whole ship.

The Jets could’ve spun this out for ages. What Canada-loving hockey fan didn’t enjoy picturing Hellebuyck, dressed in full pads, sitting outside an arena in his car, shedding a single tear? And what American cared?

Hellebuyck may have thought he was starting a patriotic movement. What he did instead was prove that the Olympics were a marketing blip in the United States. It’s football season now. Nobody cares where the goalie – you know, the one with the beard, tall guy – ended up.

If I owned the Jets, I would’ve paid Hellebuyck every nickel he’s owed to stop shots in his garage. I’d buy him a Popemobile, stand him up in the back and drive him around Winnipeg eight hours a day. Children could stop and jeer on their way to and from school.

Nothing ever goes really well for the Jets, but this was. Every reasonable person agreed that Hellebuyck was in the wrong, which meant Winnipeg was in the right. When was the last time the Jets were right about anything?

What people don’t get about sports is that it’s not about winning. If it was, Kevin Cheveldayoff would not be about to celebrate his 100th season as GM of the Jets. What it’s about is a unifying story featuring an external enemy. The Jets had neither, and Hellebuyck gave them both.

All the team had to do was nothing. So what’d it do? Something.

On Friday, as he was about to be reinstated to the club, Winnipeg traded Hellebuyck to New Jersey.

In return for an in-his-prime, three-time Vézina Trophy winner, Winnipeg got a bunch of parts (F Dawson Mercer, C Alexander Command, G Nico Daws, F Nick Bjugstad) and a couple of draft picks.

If the measure of any trade is ‘Who got the best player?’ New Jersey wins this one running backward across the finish line. Waving. Possibly moon walking.

It’s not the trade, as such. Lee Iacocca couldn’t get much value out of a streaky, overpaid, 30-something goalie in today’s NHL. It was unreasonable to expect Cheveldayoff to do better.

The problem is that that the trade was made at all. For its own sake, Winnipeg needed to inflict maximum pain on Hellebuyck. Instead, they minorly inconvenienced him.

At least, he didn’t manage to get to Florida, the Casablanca of the NHL. New Jersey isn’t hockey Shangri-La (or any other sort), but that doesn’t mean Hellebuyck hasn’t won and Winnipeg hasn’t lost. Both those things happened.

It’d have been one thing had he just wanted to go. It wasn’t honourable, but who’s honourable any more?

What made it untenable was that Hellebuyck insisted on deciding where he would end up. Anything short of a lopsided trade win would make Winnipeg look like suckers. For trusting Hellebuyck in the first place, and then for letting him roll them over twice.

A professional sports organization can afford to lose. Most do. It can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous.

Yesterday, the Jets looked resolute. Given a couple of bad options, they’d opted out altogether. They were the team that wouldn’t give in.

Today, they are ridiculous. Not because they lost a trade, but because when faced with blackmail, they paid.

To be clear, Winnipeg didn’t have to give in. It’s not like it was planning any parade routes for any time soon. They could’ve muscled through this for ages yet. Years, even. By December, Hellebuyck’s trade list would’ve been 10 teams. By March, it would’ve been 20. By the summer, it’d be every hockey team on the planet, including the ones in Siberia.

The difference was never going to be a savvy hockey sense. It was steel. Evidently, Hellebuyck had more of that.

So now what? A return to regular scheduled programming? Which is what, exactly? A Western Conference wild card and get run over by Edmonton in the first round?

How is that situation in any way better than the one Winnipeg was in a week ago? It’s much worse. This is the beginning of the end.

When it was Winnipeg vs. Hellebuyck, that was a fight Jets fans could get behind, even if they weren’t going to win it. Now it’s going to be slow decline and watching the established talent you have left drift off.

What happens when the next Jets star tells management that he’s thought about it and however many million isn’t enough if his feet might occasionally have to touch snow? They should save themselves the embarrassment of losing another staredown and void his contract on the spot.

The thing about giving in is that it doesn’t end the fight. Instead, it encourages bullies.

Losing Hellebuyck is bad for Winnipeg, but teams lose good players all the time and recover. It was the fact that it made such a show of standing up to him and lost anyway.

Yesterday, the Jets ran a struggling hockey club. Today, they don’t run it any more. The players do.