Reap what you sow? Hellebuyck chose to leave; Winnipeg chose not to forgive

In the end, the "Find Out" part of Connor Hellebuyck's breakup with Winnipeg proved less uncomfortable than expected.

After the star goaltender ditched the Jets for someone younger and prettier - or, in this case, less Canadian and less cold - Winnipeggers' only opportunity to express their displeasure Tuesday in Hellebuyck's return to the city with his new team, the New Jersey Devils, came during warmups.

Jets fans booed mightily, then cheered when the team jumped out to an early lead over the Devils and eventually pulled out the win.

But rarely has the result of an early November NHL game meant so little, and never before has a midweek contest in Winnipeg been the talk of the league.

Hellebuyck, of course, didn't play against his old teammates due to a much-ridiculed "organizational decision" to keep him out of the firing line.

Devils GM Sunny Mehta released a truly incredible statement citing a reduction in the team's expected win probability if Hellebuyck took the net in Winnipeg. That may have been management's actual position on the matter based on rest and Hellebuyck's conditioning - he missed training camp while refusing to play for the Jets - but it also read like a raised middle finger to the old-school hockey culture that expected Hellebuyck to man up and be in the crease.

It's the same culture that demands someone start a fight when a star player is injured, or sends an enforcer out to throw punches with another enforcer to set the tone in a rivalry. Analytics-minded executives like Mehta tend to ignore such things, and here he was finding yet another way to stir the pot with traditionalists.

The angry crowd apparently even included Hellebuyck, who told reporters he felt it was his "duty" to play in his return to the Canada Life Centre but added that the decision was out of his hands. (It was, obviously, easy for Hellebuyck to say he wanted to be in the net after the Devils had already declared he wouldn't be.)

The three-time Vezina winner seemed to want to mend fences with Winnipeg when he met the media Tuesday afternoon. However, he also stuck to the narrative that his experiences there, after winning Olympic gold with Team USA, played a major role in his decision to leave.

"There was some moments and some things that happened to my family that, for me, crossed the line and as a husband and a father, I felt made that decision very certain, that I needed to be a good husband and a good father and do what's best for my family and my career," Hellebuyck said.

The goaltender declined to go into further detail, other than saying it was "more than online death threats." That won't help a Winnipeg fan base that has now been smeared by a star player as having driven him out of town, without any actual evidence. Hellebuyck said the specifics of what made this decision irreversible are a "private" matter for his family.

It's hard to see how anything Hellebuyck said in recent days will comfort fans from the city that once adored him. Nor will his comments ease tensions between Canadian fans and American players in today's post-Olympic, Donald Trump-created world.

Yes, obvious moments of friction carried over into Canadian arenas around the Olympics and, before that, the 4 Nations tournament. It's undeniable that some idiots got carried away in their criticism. Still, Hellebuyck shouldn't be surprised that Winnipeg would take offense at the suggestion that it was simply untenable for an American to play there any longer - especially since Olympic teammate Kyle Connor still does.

Additionally, the goaltender's suggestion that attitudes toward Americans have hardened in Canadian markets would likely surprise all those fans wearing Auston Matthews jerseys in Toronto, among other examples.

If anything, the mood has shifted the other way, with Americans forcing their way south of the border and away from markets that were happy to have them. Those players shouldn't be caught off guard when those markets feel betrayed. Ottawa fans roundly gave it to Brady Tkachuk upon his return after he leveraged a trade to Florida, and Toronto fans even booed his father, Keith, at the Hall of Fame game Sunday night. (Coincidentally, Hellebuyck started that contest and earned a shutout in the Devils' 4-0 win over the Maple Leafs.)

Canada-U.S. relations are at an odd point in their history, and it's still strange to see some of that spill over into the NHL, of all places. If Americans respond by wanting to run home and away from the scrutiny of hockey-mad Canadian markets, it's only natural that those same markets make their displeasure known.

Those players are reaping what they've sown.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.