The Carolina Hurricanes are eight wins away from their second Stanley Cup in franchise history.
One can point to the team’s timely offense, structured defense, and great coaching from Rod Brind’Amour as the main reasons why they are playing well at the most important time of the year. While these factors have certainly contributed to the Hurricanes success in this year’s postseason, they are not the main reason why the team is inching closer to getting a chance to play for hockey’s Holy Grail.
The main reason might just be because of their goaltender, Frederik Andersen. Andersen, 35, is someone who has consistently been injured in his four seasons with the Hurricanes, but is healthy right now and doing everything he can to take his team to the promised land.
As of this writing (Friday, May 16), Andersen has been one of the best goaltenders in this year’s playoffs. He is currently 7-2 with a 1.36 goals-against average, a .937 save percentage, and one shutout.
Here is where he currently (Friday, May 16) ranks in the league:
- First in the league with a 1.36 goals-against average
- First in the league with a .937 save percentage
- Second in the league with one shutout
- Sixth in the league with 528:03 minutes of ice time
- Seventh in the league with 177 saves
There are several reasons why Andersen is playing so well right now. For starters, he is not allowing soft goals.
In previous postseasons with the Hurricanes, he would give up a bad goal at the wrong time. That happened against the New York Rangers in last year’s playoffs, and it ended up hurting the team as they were knocked out in six games in the second round.
That has not been the case this year. Pucks are not going through him, and he is not getting caught out of position.
Another reason why Andersen is on top of his game is because he is playing with an abundance of confidence. He is keeping his game simple by controlling his rebounds, coming up with the big save when his team needs one, and also by being in a good position for not only the first shot, but second and third shots as well.
One Hurricanes teammate who has noticed this is Sean Walker. Walker told Walt Ruff and Peter Dewar of the team’s website that Andersen is doing everything he can to give their team a chance to win every night.
“It’s so apparent, the confidence he’s giving us. We can play a lot more aggressive [when he’s playing like that],” Sean Walker identified post-game. “Mistakes are going to happen, but he’s been bailing us out tons. Just going out there every night, knowing that he’s back there, he’s playing unbelievable, really, it’s really a comforting feeling for us back there. We don’t want to rely on him as much as we have [and there are] some Grade-As that we’re giving up, but those are things we’re going to look at. But again, he’s playing really well and it’s giving us a great chance every night.”
In that same article mentioned above, Brind’Amour mentioned that even when Andersen is not facing a lot of shots, he is coming up with big saves and doing what he can to be ready to stop the puck when he needs to.
“It’s not easy to stay ready sometimes when there’s maybe a big lull in the game, or you’re not getting a ton of action. He’s done a nice job of always seemingly staying ready,” Rod Brind’Amour said on Tuesday. “You still have those high-quality chances, like early in the game last night, there were a couple there. To me, that’s such a huge part of it, because now all of a sudden, you’re able to settle us down and allow us to keep playing. You have to be a pro about it, and to me, that’s what he’s done really well for us, being steady.”
Simply put, Andersen is doing what he needs to do in order for the Hurricanes to win hockey games when it matters most. He is keeping his team in every game by stopping shots he should stop, not giving up any soft goals, and being there when his team needs a big save.
If Andersen can continue to do these things and get support from his teammates, there is no reason why the Hurricanes will not be the team lifting the Cup when all is said and done.
ITR 41: Stanley Cup Final – The Rematch – Inside The Rink
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