Hellebuyck worthy of Hart Trophy consideration, Theodore says

If he had a vote for the 2024-25 Hart Trophy, Jose Theodore would absolutely be casting a ballot for Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

“He’s in the prime of his career, dominating this season as he has the past few years,” said Theodore, who won the Hart with the Montreal Canadiens in 2001-02 as the player “adjudged to be the most valuable to his team” during the regular season.

“I hope that Hellebuyck wins the Hart. Nobody can deny that he’s a future Hall of Famer. He’s gone deep in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (Western Conference Final in 2018), and for sure he’s going to win his third Vezina Trophy this year -- that’s a no-brainer.”

The Hart has been awarded 100 times since 1924, voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

It is one of the NHL’s two most valuable player awards; also highly coveted is the Ted Lindsay Award, introduced in 1971 as the Lester B. Pearson Award, the League’s MVP as voted by NHL Players’ Association members.

Jose Theodore in his home office in Florida on April 1, 2025, with miniatures of his 2009-10 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy (l.), 2001-02 Hart Trophy (c.) and 2001-02 Vezina Trophy, with a selection of his game masks.

The Hart has gone to a goalie only eight times in history, the Lindsay/Pearson Award four times in its 53 years.

Happily retired in Florida with his wife and two children, piloting his own plane, doing twice-weekly Montreal sports radio spots and his days packed with myriad business interests, Theodore firmly believes that Hellebuyck will soon add his name to the Hart goalie list, the first in a decade.

The first winner in goal was Roy Worters of the New York Americans in 1928-29. Others to follow: 1949-50: Chuck Rayner, New York Rangers; 1953-54: Al Rollins, Chicago Black Hawks; 1961-62: Jacques Plante, Canadiens; 1996-97 and 1997-98: Dominik Hasek, Buffalo Sabres; 2001-02: Theodore, Canadiens; 2014-15: Carey Price, Canadiens.

Theodore is most impressed by Hellebuyck’s statistics, given the Jets veteran’s workload. That’s only natural, given that Theodore was a workhorse between 1996-2013 for the Canadiens, Colorado Avalanche, Washington Capitals, Minnesota Wild and finally the Florida Panthers.

Jose Theodore at the 2002 NHL Awards with his Hart and Vezina trophies, and in 2002 action with the Montreal Canadiens at the Molson (now Bell) Centre.

His final four full seasons in Montreal, Theodore played 59, 67, 57 and 67 games. In his 2001-02 Hart Trophy-winning season, then 25, he had a record of 30-24-10 and seven shutouts; his .931 save percentage led the NHL during a year that would see the Canadiens defeat the Boston Bruins a six-game first-round playoff series before falling in six to the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round.

In his 59 games played through April 6, Hellebuyck was 43-12-3 with seven shutouts, 2.04 GAA and a .924 save percentage, leading the NHL in wins, GAA and save percentage among goalies who had played a minimum of 25 games, .01 behind Darcy Kuemper of the Los Angeles Kings in goals-against.

The 2024 and 2020 Vezina Trophy winner seems a virtual lock for a third, the NHL’s best goalie as voted by the League’s general managers.

“I look now at the number of games a goalie plays,” said Theodore, who wanted to start every night. “For me, that’s the biggest thing that sets Hellebuyck apart -- the amount he plays. That’s what an MVP needs to be doing. I hope he keeps going.

“It’s so much harder to maintain great stats the more you play. If you play over and over, about every two days, there are more opportunities to have a bad game, to throw your stats off. You have to be so strong mentally.”

In Theodore’s mind, a team’s No. 1 goalie should be playing “close to 60” of the 82 regular-season games.

“In my day it was 67, 69,” he said. “But today, 57 to 62 or 63 should be the key point for a goalie to really be able to dominate and show what he can do. That’s why I’m happy that we’re bringing Hellebuyck to the table in the Hart discussion.

“Nowadays, everybody says a goalie isn’t supposed to play too much, not back-to-back games. What Hellebuyck is doing is even harder now than it was in my time. It’s so hard to be able to play all these games with a different mentality around the League. That he can have these stats with the number of games he's going to play, which will be like 80 games in my day, it’s even more credit to him.”

Connor Hellebuyck poses with his Vezina Trophy during the 2024 NHL Awards at Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

The Hart Trophy was never a thought in Theodore’s youth in Montreal, a 10-year-old in 1986 dazzled by rookie goalie Patrick Roy leading the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs.

“In my mind, the Hart was always Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux (Gretzky winning nine times, Lemieux once during the 1980s),” Theodore said. “In my life, before Hasek won it back-to-back, no goalie had won the Hart. I didn’t have Hart-winning role models, it wasn’t for goalies, it was only for forwards. Then Hasek won two.

“I’m thinking, ‘If you’re telling me I have one chance in a million, then OK, I do have a chance? That’s perfect.’ One in a million is better than nothing.”

At the NHL Awards in 2002, Theodore was awarded the Vezina Trophy, three first-place votes ahead of his boyhood idol Roy, then edged Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla by three first-place votes for the Hart, the latter award presented to him by Gretzky.

Buffalo Sabres goalie Dominik Hasek stretches before a 1998 game, and with his 1997 Vezina and Hart Trophies.

“When I was announced the Vezina winner, I said to myself, ‘OK I’ve won one. It doesn’t matter now. Just being here is special,’” Theodore told reporters that night. “And then Wayne Gretzky was announcing my name (as Hart winner). I was shaking. To think that something like this could happen …”

Two years earlier, Theodore finished second to Ed Belfour of the Dallas Stars for the Roger Crozier MBNA Saving Grace Award that saluted the League’s best save percentage, presented annually between 2000-07. Theodore’s .91911 was five-thousandths of a percentage point behind Belfour’s .91910.

“I did the math. Two more saves that year and I’ve had edged Belfour,” Theodore said. “On the flip side, I’m happy I didn’t win it. You’re not supposed to win if you only play 30 games, like I did that year. There’s a big difference between playing 30 and Ed’s 61, and the 59 I played the following year.”

The illustrious list of Hart winners in goal began with a man nicknamed “Shrimp,” Roy Worters, all of 5-foot-3 and 135 pounds.

Roy Worters of the New York Americans (l.) and Chuck Rayner of the New York Rangers, respectively winners of the Hart Trophy in 1929 and 1940.

“Roy Worters, Hockeyist of Yankees, Cited,” read the headline in the March 11, 1929 edition of the Pasadena Star News.

In making the case for Worters as the season’s Hart winner, which he would be awarded three weeks later, Consolidated Press Association syndicated columnist Lawrence Perry wrote. “Game after game in truth he has won practically single-handed, making two and three saves to the opposing goaltender’s one; throttling every drive while the other net guard has let just enough through to bring victory to the Americans. …

“Any goaltender could have let such shots such as these get by without laying himself open to the charge of negligence or lack of skill. But Worters stopped them all, charging thereupon out onto the ice some 30 feet to break up rushes that looked like sure goals.”

Two decades later, the Rangers’ Rayner would be the second goalie voted the Hart.

Al Rollins of the Chicago Black Hawks (l.) and Jacques Plante, respectively winners of the Hart Trophy in 1954 and 1962.

“It was the superb goaltending of the bushy-haired backstop that enabled the Rangers to get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second time in the last eight years,” it said a wire-service report of May 9, 1950.

Rollins, of the Black Hawks, and Plante, of the Canadiens, followed with Hart wins in 1953-54 and 1961-62, respectively.

Critics of the Rollins selection, wrote the Toronto Star’s Red Burnett, “will no doubt point out that Chicago finished last and that foes blasted 212 goals behind him in 66 games.”

But Burnett suggested that Rollins should have been awarded the “Heart” trophy “for courage, if nothing else” given the Black Hawks’ allergy to defense, the goalie left to his own devices while opponents bombed him from every angle.

Plante led the 1960-61 Canadiens to a first-place regular-season championship, winning his sixth career Vezina Trophy that season. Montreal’s run of five consecutive Stanley Cup wins would end in 1961, the Canadiens shockingly upset by Chicago in a six-game semifinal.

Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens with his 2014-15 winnings, from left: Vezina Trophy, William M. Jennings Trophy, Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award; and in 2022 action against the Florida Panthers.

“Plante doesn’t know how valuable he is,” a newspaper headline read, the goalie incommunicado on vacation somewhere in California when his Hart win was announced.

Hasek would score a hat trick with the Sabres in 1997, winning the Hart, Vezina and Lester B. Pearson Award.

“It was never, never in my wildest dreams,” Hasek told reporters at the June 19 NHL Awards ceremony in Toronto. “It’s a fantastic honor.”

Said then-Maple Leafs president Ken Dryden, the 1970s Canadiens goaltending legend, “He is terrific. If his first name wasn’t Dominik, ‘Dominator’ would be appropriate.”

Hasek repeated his Hart win in 1998, again adding the Vezina and Pearson to his trophy case.

Theodore followed four years later with his Hart and Vezina wins, miniatures of both trophies displayed in his home office. With them are his 2010 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, annually awarded to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.

Price made history as the most recent goaltending winner of the Hart -- he is the only goalie to sweep that trophy, the Vezina, the Ted Lindsay Award and the William M. Jennings Trophy (shared with Chicago’s Corey Crawford).

By the time Price walked on stage at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to accept the NHL Awards-closing Hart, he was almost embarrassed.

Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck before his team’s game against the New York Rangers at Canada Life Centre on March 11, 2025.

“I’ll be honest, I’m right out of things to say,” he managed.

Price led the NHL in 2014-15 with 44 wins, a 1.96 GAA and .933 save percentage, the first goalie to lead all categories since Belfour did so with Chicago in 1990-91.

Now, a decade later, Hellebuyck is on a very short list of players in the hunt for the 2024-25 Hart Trophy.

The Jets host the St. Louis Blues on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; Prime, NHLN, FDSNMW).

“I feel that he’s set himself apart this year, where he’s really on top of the Hart list,” Theodore said. “What Hellebuyck is doing is not a fluke, he’s been doing it for a long time.

“It’s always fun to see a goalie step up. It’s not an easy task; you need all the stars aligned. I can’t see him not winning it. My vote would go to him.”

Top photo: Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck focuses on the play during a game against the Canucks at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on March 18, 2025.