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WWYDW: What Should The Jets Do About Their Goalies?

Feb 3, 2016, 12:02 ESTUpdated: Invalid DateTime
Welcome to this week’s version of What Would You Do Wednesday where you are asked a question and debate among yourselves what the answer is. Unfortunately, the only prize you will receive will be the most Twitter mentions.
This week’s WWYDW asks about what the Jets should do with their upcoming goalie controversy and who should be traded or waived. Take a read and let us know!
The period between the end of the All Star break and the trade deadline is where most teams are looking to shore up their depth for a deep playoff run. The Jets have a bit of depth in net, once Ondrej Pavelec returns from his knee injury and teams could be calling about their goalies.
With the Jets (and Jets fans) most likely looking towards the 2016-17 season and beyond, now might be the time to try to gain some draft picks.
Ondrej Pavelec
The obvious choice is to see if there is a trade market for Pavelec, if he is back in time before the trade deadline. Barring his injury, the issue with Pavelec is he has another year with a $3.9 million dollar cap hit and his salary increases to $4.75 million dollars.
A budget team may not be willing to trade for Pavelec because of the amount of salary still needed to be paid out. As well, he has been injured for a considerable amount of time and teams may worry about his injury and level of play.
Trading Michael Hutchinson is the less obvious and less popular option, but at this point he may have more value. Hutchinson has been stuck in a back up role for his short NHL career behind Pavelec and now behind rookie Connor Hellebuyck.
Michael Hutchinson
Hutchinson is a RFA at the end of the 2015-16 season and carries a cap hit of $575,000 dollars. He has shown flashes of brilliance in a smallish sample size, even though the 2015-16 season has not gone as well as planned.
Hutchinson has shown that he can be a better goalie than Pavelec and may have more value than Pavelec. As well, he has a minimal cap hit for the rest of the season, which may make him a desirable asset to a team like New Jersey who is pushing for the playoffs and is riding their current starter, Cory Schneider, extremely hard to make the playoffs.
Hutchinson may be able to produce the most value in a trade.
Connor Hellebuyck and Eric Comrie
This next section is a little biased, but still needs to be thrown out there.
Hellebuyck should be off limits. Anything can happen, but the rookie goaltender has taken his team by storm and Jets Nation by storm. He carries a $696,000 cap hit throughout the 2016-17 season. Hellebuyck is the goalie of the future, which is what the Jets are building for and should not be traded.
Eric Comrie is the other goalie who should be off limits. Comrie’s cap hit is $642,000, but he has not seen any NHL action. While, Comrie may have some value based off his performance in lower levels of play, he will not be the kind of player a NHL team would be trading for to shore up their goaltending. Plus, the Jets may need him in the future.
Ondrej Pavelec and Michael Hutchinson are the most tradeable goalies, if the Jets opt to go for a goalie trade.
What Would You Do Jets Nation?
Reports suggest Pavelec should be back within the next few weeks, so the Jets have some time to make a decision.
Should the Jets trade Pavelec, if they can find a suitable partner who is willing to take on salary? The Jets could also waive Pavelec and hope someone picks him up off the waiver wire.
Should the Jets trade Hutchinson? Hutchinson and Hellebuyck might be the best tandem moving forward to the Jets, but Hutchinson may get the most return out of the two tradeable goalies.
Should the Jets trade Hellebuyck? (NO) Connor Hellebuyck should retrieve the most value if he was traded because of his cap hit and his play during his rookie season. However, he has shown he is ready to play at the NHL level and has the potential to be a number one starter.
Or, should Jets could always send Hellebuyck down to the minors, as he is the only goalie exempt from waivers, and return to the tandem of Pavelec and Hutchinson?
As always leave your answers in the comments or on Twitter with the #wwydw hash tag and mention to @NHLJetsNation
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