The NHL is TERRIFIED of the Devils...

Five straight wins, a 4-0 shutout in Toronto, and the Devils just announced that their goaltender won't play in Winnipeg. That goalie is Connor Hellebuyck, a Vezina and Hart winning goaltender that the Jets traded to the New Jersey Devils on October 23rd. Since then, the Devils are 9-1 in their last 10 games, 5th in the NHL in points, and with a plus 15 goal differential. Last season in Winnipeg, he went 23-23-11 with an .895 save percentage. One of the five straight wins came with Jake Allen in net. Is this the team that nobody in the NHL wants to play right now? It was not new. Last season, Jacob Markstrom played 44 games for the Devils with an 8-8-3 save percentage, and Allen played 37 with a 9-0-4. Before the trade, Jake Allen and Nico Hischier had a combined .880 save percentage this season, 23rd in the league. New Jersey went and got the goalie with three Vezina trophies in 2020, 24, and 25. The price was Dawson Mercer, Nico Dawes, Nick Bukstead at 2029's second round pick at 2027's seventh, and the rights to prospect Alexander Komand at the pick 12th in the 2026 draft. Hellebuyck waived his no-movement clause to make it happen, after a month of a standoff and a suspension in camp. He carries an $8.5 million cap hit with five seasons left. That is a big bill for a goalie coming off a 8-9-5 save percentage and a 2.86 goals against average. The Devils were banking on his career and not his numbers last season. Winnipeg decided that they could live without him and New Jersey decided they couldn't. Their last loss was 5-2 in Colorado on October 28th and they have won every game since. They won in Vegas 5-2 then beat Edmonton 4-3 in a shootout. Then came St. Louis, 5-4 in overtime, and the Islanders, 5-4 in overtime. Three of the last four wins needed extra time. Then the 4-0 win at Toronto, with Nico Hischier scoring on the power play, reaching 500 career points. The Devils are 13-5-0, with 26 points, fifth in the league. In a week, the Devils went from 18th to 9th in the Hockey News Power Rankings, and from 19th to 8th at the Daily Faceoff. Power Rankings moved them up 9 and 11 spots this week. Sheldon Keefe was wary to credit the trade for the team's recent success, saying the team was playing good before Hellebuck arrived. After the Dallas debut, in which Hellebuck made 17 saves on 18 shots after one practice, Keefe called him, quote, exceptional. And it's not just the goaltending. The scary part is how they score. Jack Hughes has 25 points in 18 games, 9 goals, and 16 assists. Jesper Bratt has 18 points, Heiskanen has 13, and Luke Hughes has 11. Jack Hughes, Bratt, and Gritsuk have played 151 minutes together at 5-on-5. New Jersey has outscored teams 11-3 in those minutes and taken 60.4% of the shot attempts. Hughes is up to 5.2 shots on goal a game over his last five from 3.6 before that. He's scored the overtime winner on the Islanders 118 into the extra period after the Devils trailed 4-2. Hughes said it was the first game all year they chipped away and still stuck with it. In Toronto, Myers scored in the second period, and the Devils added Heiskanen's power play goal and an empty netter from Brown. Against St. Louis, Bratt and Luke Hughes each had a goal and an assist, and Jack Hughes had two assists himself. Different players on different nights is what makes it hard to plan against a team like this. Now, Hellebuck himself, he is 5-0 as a Devil with a 1.96 goals against average and a .913 save percentage. He is the first Devil's goaltender in history to win all of his first five starts as a Devil. Here is each start by save percentage, .944, then .905, then .857, .875, and 1.000. The numbers were good but not untouchable as two of the starts came below .900. Against St. Louis, he made 28 saves on 32 shots, and one of the goals was his own mistake. He passed the puck right to a St. Louis forward who set up the tying goal. His own words, quote, I'll just call it a mistake. How about that? Then he gave them the answer in Toronto, 23 shots, 23 saves, his first shutout as a Devil. His read on the move is, quote, it's almost a seamless transition. Over his career, he has 12-2-1 against New Jersey. With a .926 save percentage, the Devils used to be a team he beat. But the Devils are not perfect, and the St. Louis game shows it. They led 4-1, then St. Louis scored three goals in 3 minutes and 8 seconds, 4-2 at 11:46, 4-3 at 14:36, and 4-4 at 14:54. Brat won it on the breakaway, 126 in overtime. Before that game, their penalty kill sat at 67.65%, 29th in the league. Colorado beat them 5-2 on October 28th, the one loss in their last six. Two nights later, they were in Vegas winning 5-2, so one bad night did not stick for this team. They take 32.7 shots a game, second in the league, and give up 24.5 fourths. That gap is how a team that still leaks wins 9 of 10. The Jets are 7-8-3, 23rd in the league with a minus 14 goal differential. Stuart Skinner is their starter now, 6-4-3 with an .883 save percentage and 3.26 goals against average. The Jets, as a team, have an 8-8-3 save percentage and allow 3.5 goals a game. Skinner was pulled after five goals on 17 shots and a 7-0 loss at Carolina. Their last game was a 4-3 win over Tampa Bay, decided by Mark Scheifele with 1.6 seconds left after a 3-0 lead was fumbled. The skaters from the trade are quiet. Mercer has four points in eight games on ESPN's Jets page. Command, the 12th pick, is 18 and playing for Orebro in Sweden with 12 points in six games when the Jets announced the trade. So Winnipeg got a prospect who won't be playing for them for quite some time. They got a goalie in Nico Das who's only made two starts for them so far. So Winnipeg let Connor Hellebuck walk. They really didn't have any other choice. And his save percentage has gone up since he left Winnipeg. Which brings us to Tuesday as the Devils are in Winnipeg and Hellebuck is not playing. General Manager Sonny Mehta said Hellebuck wanted to play, but the team believes it would hurt their expected win probability. Keefe has a different reason, workload, and that he is not going to play every game of the season. Hellebuck's answer was short, quote, it's out of my hands. Winnipeg writers went after the Devils. Josh Yeo wrote the Devils, quote, looks like absolute fools. Eric Ingles said he does not know how Hellebuck can even accept it. Michael Larkin wrote that if it is truly out of Hellebuck's hands, his new team is, quote, doing him dirty. Ingles wrote that a 10-0 Jets win over the Devils on Tuesday would make him a full believer in karma. The Devils have not said anything else about how the decision looks. Devils beat writer James Nichols says the decision is 110% about Hellebuck and his career success against Washington and the Metropolitan Division. The Devils play Washington at home on November 12th and at Washington on November 14th. Here is what the numbers say. Against Washington, Hellebuck is 8-5-2 in 15 games with a 2.24 goals against average and a .923 save percentage. That is above his career, .916, but he is better against Columbus at 9-3-9 and against the Devils at a 9-2-6. Carolina is a different story, 4-5-0 with a 3.71 goals against and an 8-8-7 save percentage. So Nichols is half right. Washington is a good matchup, but it isn't his best in the Metro. So resting him does make sense because they have two games in three days against the Washington Capitals. That's a plan that you can defend. It is not a plan nobody can question. The Devils play nine games in 19 days after Tuesday, and the schedule is built around the goalie question. Washington on November 12th and November 14th, Montreal on the 18th of November, St. Louis on November 21st, Columbus on November 23rd and 25th, Calgary on the 27th, and the Winnipeg again on November 28th. The last one in New Jersey is the real homecoming as Hellebuck is against Winnipeg with the Jets in the other crease. Columbus is the other one to circle. Hellebuck is 7-1-0 against the Blue Jackets in his career with a 9-3-9 save percentage, his best mark against any Metro team. Allen has taken the other starts and he's won both of them. That is the depth they didn't have a month ago. Keefe said when the trade was made that a goalie of this pedigree supporting Allen should give the group more confidence. Skinner has fallen from 9-11 save percentage and a 2.6 goals against average on October 26th to an 8-8-3 and a 3-2-6 now. The regular season is the easy part. Hellebuck's playoff record is 24-34 in 58 games with a 2.90 goals against average and a 9-0-3 save percentage. His regular season career is .345, .208, and .55, with 45 shutouts and a .916 save percentage. Winning five in a row in November does not matter when you have to play against Washington or Carolina in April. He is a three-time Vezina winner and a Hart winner, and the Devils are paying him like that over the next five seasons. I do think now with Hellebuck, the Devils are a scary team, and I think it's a Hart team to plan against for any coaches in the NHL. They are 9-1 in their last 10 since the trade and up plus 15 on differential and a goalie who is 5-0 and is on fire. But they are struggling on the penalty kill right now and they blew a 4-1 lead and lost 5-2 in Colorado as well, so they need to really prove that they can beat the best teams in the league. And in Winnipeg, Allen will be in net and they're going to have the building against them, so it's going to be a tough one for the Devils to go out and win. They have Washington twice in three days, like we mentioned, so this is really going to be the first test for Hellebuck and if this trade was worth it for New Jersey. And if you like this kind of video, go down below, hit that subscribe button. It's completely free to do so. Comment down below if you think Hellebuck or Allen should have been in net for Tuesday against Winnipeg in Winnipeg. And do you think the NHL is scared of the Devils? Let me know down below in the comments. And if you enjoyed, leave a like, subscribe to the channel. As always, I'm your host, Casey. Keep your stick on the ice.