It wasn’t that long ago that Laurent Brossoit and Connor Hellebuyck were teammates spending an off day together, riding a snowmobile through the Manitoba wilderness. They glided through the trees toward a frozen lake with Hellebuyck’s giant gray and white malamute, Tinley, chasing closely behind.
Once they arrived at the lake, Hellbuyck set up his ice fishing hut and drilled a hole underneath them, and the two would pull walleye out of the water until the decided to head home and cook them for dinner that night.
Advertisement
The two were close friends during the three seasons they shared the net in Winnipeg from 2018 to 2021. Now they’ll stare at each other from opposite nets as playoff foes, as the Golden Knights and Jets begin their first-round series on Tuesday.
“It’ll be fun to go against him,” Brossoit said. “We had a good, healthy, competitive relationship. It’ll be fun seeing him on the other end, and it’ll be that much sweeter when we win.”
It’s not that often goalie partners are around the same age. It’s more common for a team to have a veteran accompanied by a younger goalie of the future, but Brossoit and Hellebuyck were born the same year, only two months apart.
“The camaraderie was nice,” Brossoit said. “It’s weird to kind of be the same age as your goalie partner, so we were really close.”
Outside of ice fishing, the two spent a lot of time in Hellbuyck’s basement playing on his golf simulator during the cold Winnipeg winters. As close as they are, both know they’re enemies for the moment.
“Not yet,” Brossoit responded when asked if he’d reached out to Hellebuyck. He smiled and replied, “No friends up there.”
“I might send him (a text) telling him to look out,” Hellebuyck joked, “because I’m coming for him.”
The two are obviously in very different places in their careers. Hellebuyck has established himself as one of the best goalies in the world, with a Vezina Trophy already to his name. During their time together in Winnipeg, Hellebuyck was the clear starter and played the vast majority of the games.
“He taught me a lot just in terms of preparation and everything,” Brossoit said of Hellebuyck. “He’s had his routines very set in stone for a long time. He’s been the same goalie and very consistent. You know what you’re getting. I learned a lot from him that way.”
Brossoit has battled with consistency throughout his NHL career. In 2016-17, he was outstanding in his first real stretch of action, posting a .928 save percentage in eight games. The following year, his save percentage fell dramatically to .883, and he moved on from Edmonton to Winnipeg.
Advertisement
In his first year as a Jet, he looked like one of the most promising young backup goalies in the entire league, going 13-6-2 with an impressive 9.8 goals saved above average. Unfortunately, he followed that up with another subpar season in 2019-20. Brossoit’s success has been a bit of a yoyo through his nine years as a pro, and he’s revealed recently that it was partially due to a hip injury that had bothered him since junior hockey. This past offseason, he underwent hip surgery and said he feels the best he’s felt in years.
“Everyone plays through stuff, but there are compensation patterns that you have to kind of get used to when you’re going through stuff,” he said. “There’s a way you want to play, and then there’s a way you have to play. It’s nice now that I don’t have as many limitations, and can play the way that I want to play.”
At his best, Brossoit has shown to be an excellent goalie in the NHL. He has a natural patience to his game that allows him to read plays and wait shooters out. He’s calm in the crease, always on angle and in sound position. The problem is that those peaks in performance hadn’t been consistent enough to this point.
“I had shown it and I had felt it in spurts, but it was the consistency that was always lacking,” he said.
Knowing Hellebuyck had established himself as one of the best, Brossoit left Winnipeg in 2021 in search of more playing time. At that point, he was hoping to just keep his head above water and stay in the NHL. He signed with the Golden Knights thinking there could be an opportunity, but it’s taken much longer than he initially anticipated.
After offseason hip surgery, Brossoit found himself behind Logan Thompson and Adin Hill on the goalie depth chart, as both stepped up and played well in his absence. In November, he was waived to the American Hockey League, but Brossoit viewed it with a refreshing big-picture view.
Advertisement
“Looking at things realistically, I knew it was an option, and the more likely option,” he explained. “Given the situation, I had just come off surgery. The only action I had really seen, the numbers were not good, I wasn’t ready to play and, given my cap hit, it didn’t bode well for another team to take the risk to take me.”
He viewed it as an opportunity. At the NHL level, his starts would’ve been few and far between, whereas with the Silver Knights, he would get as many reps as he needed to find his game, which he did.
“He’s a true pro,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Talking to both (Silver Knights coach) Manny (Viveiros) and (goalie coach) Freddy Brathwaite, he was excellent in terms of work ethic and with helping (Jiri) Patera of whatever goalie was down there. He did whatever he needed to do to help those guys out, while he was getting himself ready to play.”
Brossoit has always believed he has what it takes to be a starting goalie in the NHL, but even he admitted that waivered at times during his stint in Henderson.
“Your whole career, when you go through the backroads that I’ve gone through, you have one guy on your shoulder that doubts you, and the guy on the other shoulder that believes in the potential that you have,” he said. “There are times other people don’t see it, but I’ve always known that I have it.”
Down the stretch of the regular season, Brossoit finally got his opportunity to seize a starting role, and he played the best hockey of his NHL career. He didn’t lose a game in regulation through 10 starts and posted an impressive .927 save percentage to earn the starting job for the playoffs.
“It wasn’t exactly how I had it written up, but the longer the journey, the sweeter the fruit,” he said. “I’m grateful for all the failures I’ve had in the past to get to here.”
Advertisement
Brossoit isn’t just a starter. He’s the guy behind the top-seeded team in the Western Conference, a team with legitimate hopes of winning it all.
“It’s not only something you dream about to play in the NHL, but for a team like this, it’s a phenomenal opportunity,” Brossoit said. “It’s a lot of responsibility. It’s a team that is expected to have a pretty good chance (at winning).”
There’s obviously a long road in front of Brossoit and the Golden Knights to accomplish that goal, but the first person standing in the way is an old friend.
“You know, it’s going to be fun,” Hellebuyck said. “I’m close with LB. He’s still a good friend of mine. I know we’re going to talk about this for many years. I’m going to enjoy myself.”
It’s a fascinating dynamic. Hellebuyck and Brossoit have learned a lot from each other over the years, whether it’s in the crease or an ice fishing hut on a frozen lake in Manitoba. They share the same personal goalie coach, and are represented by the same agent.
Starting Tuesday night, the old friends will stare each other down from 178 feet away and try to outduel each other for a spot in the second round of the playoffs.
(Photo of Laurent Brossoit: Stephen R. Sylvanie / USA Today)
