Goalie Connor Hellebuyck and winger Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets inked seven-year contract extensions at an average of $850 million a year.
Gentille: For better or worse, the Jets’ favored natural state is inertia, thus it always seemed like the best thing for the team to extend the contracts of two of the franchise’s most important players. However, that did not make them inevitable. Scheifele and Hellebuyck had opinions on the topic. At this critical personal and professional crossroads, both are thirty years old. It would have made sense to decide to begin playing games, observe how things work out, and maintain the freedom to move on.
Instead, the plan now is for both to play out their careers — if not in their entirety, something quite close — in Winnipeg. It’d be easy to ding the franchise here; how is the dish supposed to change if the ingredients stay the same? It’s an overall win for the Jets, though, particularly as it relates to Hellebuyck. For the better part of a decade, he’s been the single biggest reason to believe in this franchise’s playoff viability. Elite goaltenders — foundational ones like Hellebuyck — don’t grow on trees. Without him in the fold, there’d still be a reason for fans to show up but not for them to think that the games they pay to see matter in any big-picture sense. For a franchise that launched a season-ticket drive in April 2023, with barely any subtext, that matters. The Jets needed to keep their face. If bottoming out truly isn’t an option, the problems get bigger — but there’d still be no better player to have in the fold.
All we can conclude about Hellebuyck’s side of the story is that he received what he desired: long-term security and a yearly remuneration that reflects his true value. Only two goalies who play in games the next season will earn more, and he will remain at that amount until he is 38 years old. Hellebuyck is also “a father, a planner (who) has the courage to name the Cup as his ultimate goal,” according to Murat Ates of The Athletic in September. Two of those factors appear to be immediately drawn to the offer. We’ll see how the entire Cup thing plays out, but in the end, that is his business.
Scheifele is a more difficult case as usual. Given his age and history of defensive apathy, it’s difficult to refute the notion that he is a $8.5 million player. It is more likely that he will somewhat restore his value this season, pitching a team—possibly the Bruins—on the qualities that have made him so popular for so long in exchange for something somewhat close on the open market. The procedure was initiated in 2022–23 with a 42-goal season. We must reevaluate the valuations we attach to players because the salary cap is also increasing.
In the end, Winnipeg will benefit more if they surround Scheifele with more skill and demand less of him in order for them to be more than a bubble playoff team. There’s just not much evidence to suggest that will occur, particularly if they stick to choose players in the 20th round every time, and he has demonstrated for years that being a team’s top forward won’t result in anything extraordinary. However, “special” may not be the intended outcome.
