Hellebuyck sounds off on goalie treatment: 'Something needs to change'

Connor Hellebuyck believes NHL officials are allowing skaters to do too much when it comes to contact with goaltenders.

The Winnipeg Jets netminder was particularly miffed about Calgary Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin kneeing him in the head during Thursday's game.

"My question is why is there no penalty on that?" Hellebuyck told the Winnipeg Sun's Paul Friesen on Friday. "It's not like I dove in front of him. He wasn't pushed in. He just made a dumb route. You see that more coming around this game. People aren't really afraid around the goalies anymore."

Hellebuyck then implied that it's time for the league to take action.

"Something needs to change there," he said. "Because I get called for a penalty in L.A., right? So now I have more penalties called against me than I drew. And I think that's ridiculous.

"You can see in the young guys, like (Flames forward Matthew) Tkachuk - (he) tries to push me into the net. It's ridiculous. Something needs to be called or something needs to be changed with the goalies. We're players too."

The 2017-18 Vezina Trophy finalist said he's noticed a developing trend in which "they're trying to take a little more from us," and he doesn't think there's a desire to fix it.

"They don't want it to change," Hellebuyck said. "They like the goals. They want more goals and want to take more from us. (Hanifin) wasn't shoved in or anything. What needs to happen is a penalty needs to be called, and then their coach is going to say that was a dumb penalty to take, and then he's not going to come storming at the net when I'm covering the puck."

The first-place Jets have dropped two consecutive games following Saturday's 2-1 defeat to the Minnesota Wild. However, Hellebuyck was hardly to blame for either loss, and he's posted a .924 save percentage over his last nine starts.

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