Hurricanes’ Brandon Bussi becomes fastest goalie to 20 wins in NHL history
The Carolina Hurricanes made history in multiple ways with their dramatic 5-4 win over the Utah Mammoth on Thursday night.
By erasing a late 4-2 deficit, they became the first team of the salary cap era to earn a regulation win in a game in which they trailed by multiple goals with under two minutes remaining.
With the victory, goaltender Brandon Bussi picked up his 20th win of his season and NHL career. By doing so, he became the fastest goalie in NHL history to win 20 games, needing just 24 appearances to reach the milestone.
The Bus keeps on rolling for the @Canes! 🚌
“He’s been getting better and better, which is great,” head coach Rod Brind’Amour told Ryan Henkel of The Hockey News after the game. “Early, he was good, but now he seems to just be settling in. That’s two points that he got for our group. Wasn’t much else going on tonight. We need that when we don’t have our best game. You need the goalie to come up big and he did.”
Bussi surrendered 4 goals on 25 shots in the win, as the Mammoth were able to pierce Carolina’s typically suffocating defense and generate numerous high-quality looks.
The Long Island native and Western Michigan University product has been a crucial part of Carolina’s success this season. With Pyotr Kochetkov out for the season with an injury and veteran Frederik Andersen only recently rounding into form, Bussi has gone 20-3-1 with a .908 save percentage and 2.22 goals against average.
Bussi spent the entirety of his professional career prior to this season in the Boston Bruins‘ organization, playing with their ECHL affiliate Maine Mariners and AHL affiliate Providence Bruins.
This summer, he signed a two-way contract with the Florida Panthers, but was beaten out for the backup job and placed on waivers. Carolina claimed him to cover for the possibility of losing Cayden Primeau on waivers, and he was quickly pressed into NHL action when Kochetkov first went down.