Hellebuyck's Clock Runs Out Friday

The suspension ends this week, and Winnipeg still doesn't have a trade. Per Elliotte Friedman's reporting, the Jets face a hard deadline Friday: move Hellebuyck in a blockbuster deal or welcome back a three-time Vezina winner who very publicly does not want to be here.

Neither outcome is clean. A trade at this point — with the Jets already 40-54 and bleeding goals at the back end — means selling from a position of weakness, with every interested team knowing the deadline. A reunion means putting Hellebuyck back in a crease he walked away from, behind a defense that's allowing 4.0 goals per game over the last ten. The locker room has been preparing for that conversation, according to coverage from Monday, and "preparing" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Brayden Yager's recall from the Moose — nine points in six AHL games before the Jets pulled him up — is a small piece of actual good news buried under all of this. Stuart Skinner has been carrying the net in Hellebuyck's absence, and the goaltending depth chart behind him is thin. Whatever happens Friday, the organization needs a functional crease. Right now it has a standoff.