Bruce Boudreau makes his thoughts clear on Connor Hellebuyck's 3rd Vezina chase

Connor Hellebuyck has two Vezina trophies, the award given out annually to the best goalkeeper in the league. He won it in 2020 and again last year, and he is currently attempting to become the first player since Martin Brodeur in 2007 and 2008 to win the award twice in a row.

He's currently in the midst of an excellent season, and legendary former coach Bruce Boudreau gave his thoughts on Hellebuyck's chase on SportsCenter.

The former Washington Capitals coach said in the video uploaded on Wednesday (1:00):

"I've thought long and hard about this, and there's been goalies that have had really good pockets of 6, 7, 8 games, but there's nobody that is consistent, plays as much, and is the most important person on their team than Connor Hellebuyck."

The Winnipeg Jets goalie has been excellent this year. Boudreau believes there's "no way" he doesn't win the third Vezina trophy of the year "if things stay the same and they go the way that they're supposed to go."

He added:

"(This) puts him right up with the best goalies of all time, if you ask me. Not just Americans. So I think he's well on his way to doing that."

Hellebuyck leads the league in GAA with 2.08 goals allowed per contest. It's helped the Jets get off to a great start.

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Connor Hellebuyck gets 300th career win

The Winnipeg Jets had experienced a small slide recently with goalie Connor Hellebuyck sitting on the cusp of 300 career wins. He'd lost both of his previous two starts, but he finally broke through against the Nashville Predators.

Connor Hellebuyck won his 300th game (Imagn)

Following the victory, he said via NHL.com:

“It feels good. The anticipation was killing me a little bit. That’s not how I played it out this week, but the guys played so hard in front of me and the crowd was incredible tonight. That’s a very memorable one.”

He continued:

“As you get a little older in this league and things start to happen and you start to achieve some things, that kind of sets in and you start to realize that you’re doing some great things."

Hellebuyck became the fastest American goaltender in hockey history to reach the milestone, doing so in just 538 games. For all goalkeepers regardless of nationality, he did it the third-fastest time, behind Andrei Vasilevskiy (490 games) and Jacques Plante (521 games).