HockeyBuzz’s Eklund reported this week that Connor Hellebuyck’s trade market has narrowed to two teams: Carolina and Buffalo. Treat those as co-equal suitors and the story reads like a bidding war. Look at what each team has actually said and offered, and it isn’t one. Buffalo is negotiating a real trade. Carolina is a name in a rumor column, kept there because it costs nothing to be kept there.
Why Winnipeg Actually Has to Move Him Now
Hellebuyck signed a 7-year, $59.5M extension on October 9, 2023, and five years of it remain at an $8.5M cap hit. He also holds full trade protection that doesn’t ease to a 10-team no-trade list until July 2027. Hellebuyck’s no-move clause is the detail that makes this whole situation strange: nothing forces a trade this summer. What changes the math is Hellebuyck himself. Multiple reports, including Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts and David Pagnotta at Hello Hockey, have him willing to waive that clause, and specifically naming Buffalo as the team he’d waive it for. A player who controls his own destination isn’t an asset Winnipeg shops on its own schedule. He’s one it has a short window to move on someone else’s.
That relay is from late June, before Eklund’s report added Carolina to the mix. It matters here because it shows the Buffalo track was live and specific weeks before “down to two” became the headline, not invented by this week’s rumor roundup.
Buffalo Already Got Told No Once, and Came Back Anyway
The clearest sign Buffalo is actually shopping: Buffalo already turned Winnipeg down once and stayed at the table anyway. Per Nick Kypreos on July 1, Winnipeg asked Buffalo to include winger Zach Benson in a package built around the No. 4 overall pick. Buffalo GM Jarmo Kekalainen’s answer, relayed as a direct quote, was “that’s not happening.”
A team that walks away from a real ask doesn’t usually stay in the rumor mill out of politeness. Buffalo stayed anyway. This is a franchise that already lived through the Hellebuyck trade that collapsed before the draft, and it came back for more. The packages reported since split on the names, some pairing netminder Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen with forward Ryan McLeod, others with prospects like Jack Quinn or Konsta Helenius instead, but all of them still center on Buffalo giving up NHL-ready pieces, not a restatement of the pick-only offer it already rejected. Friedman’s own follow-up spelled out why Buffalo can afford to give up UPL at all: the Sabres would still have Alex Lyon and Colten Ellis behind him, goaltending depth good enough that other teams reportedly want a piece of it too. That’s what a team negotiating in good faith looks like from the outside. It keeps adjusting the offer instead of disappearing.
Carolina’s Own GM Told You Why This Isn’t Real
Here’s the half of the report that Eklund’s roundup treats the same way and shouldn’t. Carolina lost Frederik Andersen to Edmonton in July, which is the kind of vacancy that starts trade rumors by default. But GM Eric Tulsky has already said, in his own words, that he’d be comfortable running back the tandem he has: Brandon Bussi and Pyotr Kochetkov, at a combined $3.9M, even knowing Kochetkov has missed significant time the last two seasons to hip and knee injuries. That’s not a GM talking himself into patience while he chases a star. That’s a GM stating the incumbent option is good enough, on the record, which is the opposite of a team about to pay $8.5M and give up real pieces for an upgrade it doesn’t need. Chris Johnston still lists Carolina as a name to watch. He’s not wrong that the Hurricanes have called. He doesn’t weigh Tulsky’s own comfort with his own tandem against Buffalo’s actual, escalating offer, and that’s the gap this piece is built to close.
The Objection That Actually Matters Here
The sharpest pushback: if Hellebuyck holds a full no-movement clause that doesn’t legally narrow to a list until 2027, how does a rumor column get to name exactly two teams a year early? Fair question, and the answer is that full clauses function as a private conversation long before they become a CBA-mandated document. A player with real leverage routinely hands his GM an informal short list, which is exactly what’s being reported here: Hellebuyck willing to waive, and naming Buffalo specifically. The “two teams” in Eklund’s report aren’t the whole league bidding. They’re the two teams that have cleared Hellebuyck’s actual, if informal, list, and one of them got there because Winnipeg asked and got a real answer while the other got there because a goalie left Raleigh in July and reporters need a second name in a notes column.
Per HockeyBuzz, July 26, 2026. The "down to two" framing traces to one insider's rumor roundup; the cap and negotiating-history evidence below comes independently from Chris Johnston, Nick Kypreos and Carolina's own GM.
What Winnipeg Actually Does Next
The tell that Winnipeg isn’t waiting on Carolina to make up its mind: the Jets spent July building their own answer regardless of how the Carolina half resolves. Hours after goaltender Eric Comrie left for San Jose on July 1, Winnipeg signed Stuart Skinner to a 2-year, $3.75M AAV deal, a contract that works whether Skinner is a 1B insurance policy this season or the new starter the moment Hellebuyck is dealt. Two weeks later, on July 15, Cole Perfetti’s 5-year extension read the same way: a front office locking in the pieces around a goaltending change it expects to make, not one hoping a deal falls through. Watch Buffalo’s offer for the next real move, not Carolina’s name in the notes column. If Winnipeg gets Luukkonen and NHL-ready help for a five-year, $8.5M goaltender with a personal wish list of one team, that’s the actual trade this saga was always headed toward. Carolina was never the story. It was the filler.
