Ice hockey is often cited as one of the most physically demanding sports, with a long National Hockey League (NHL) season, intense bursts of speed skating and high-impact collisions on the ice.
For star goaltenders like the Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck, the intensity is even higher. Named the NHL MVP in 2025 and a three-time winner of the Vezina Trophy (the NHL’s best goaltender award), Connor drops to his knees dozens of times during a game and even more frequently during practice.
“In the second game of the 2025 season, something felt off in my right knee,” Connor said. “But I kept playing.”
An MRI later showed he had a torn meniscus and a Baker’s (popliteal) cyst on the back of his knee. Despite the pain, Connor decided to push through. But by November, with the 2026 Winter Olympics rapidly approaching, he had a decision to make.
“I was starting to question what my knee can handle. On bad days, I couldn’t put my full weight over it, and it was swollen and tight,” Connor said. “My knee started catching, and I wondered if it was going to cost me goals and games.”
So, Connor turned to the Winnipeg Jets’ head team physician, orthopedic surgeon Peter MacDonald, MD, FRCS(C) (Winnipeg, Canada), who used Arthrex’s NanoNeedle™ scope 2.0 and Nano arthroscopy to debride Connor’s meniscus. The scope allows surgeons to perform certain procedures with instruments that are 60% smaller than a traditional arthroscope.
“With this third generation of the NanoNeedle scope, recovery is seamless,” Dr. MacDonald said. “The optics are so much better, and we need smaller and fewer portals to access the knee. We’re also using less fluid, which means less of an insult to the joint, and patients recover much faster.”
For Connor, the promise of an ultra-minimally invasive solution that would get him back on the ice within weeks, not months, convinced him to have the procedure.
“On day one, even, I was thinking, ‘Is this really what surgery feels like? I feel good.’ I never even took any pain medication,” Connor said. “By day two, I was back in the gym, working on getting the joint moving. By day five, I was almost back to full throttle with rotational work, step-ups, squats and weights.”
Within two weeks, Connor was back on the ice.
“I stopped even thinking about the surgery within a couple of weeks,” Connor said. “I completely trust my knee now. I use it more now than I did before the surgery – it feels like a normal knee.”
Dr. MacDonald is the first orthopedic surgeon in Canada to use the NanoNeedle scope 2.0, and to date, he’s had great success using it on three other NHL players.
“For a professional athlete, the stakes are really high to get them back as quickly as possible,” Dr. MacDonald said. “But for amateur athletes and everyday people, it also makes a huge difference to be able to push the envelope and get them back to activities sooner.”
In fact, he says some athletic trainers need to be convinced that they can push the athletes much more quickly after the surgery.
“Connor is a very intelligent hockey player and a motivated athlete,” Dr. MacDonald said. “He takes great care of his body, and he knows when something is wrong, but he also knows when something is right.”
Less than three months after his surgery, Connor said he was ready to compete on the world stage in the Winter Olympics.
“I feel great. I am back,” Connor said. “We’re in the Olympics to win, and I am so excited about it.”