The Hurricanes’ crease should be Brandon Bussi’s to lose
Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour made a bold choice for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights.
After Frederik Andersen was mostly excellent through the first three series, the veteran Dane faltered in Games 1-3. After a strong showing from backup Brandon Bussi as the Hurricanes rallied to nearly win after being down 4-0 in the third period, Bussi got the nod for an all-important fourth game on Tuesday.
The move paid off. Bussi stopped 18 of 21 shots to outduel Carter Hart en route to a 5-3 win that got Carolina to a 2-2 tie in the series heading to Raleigh for Game 5.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed Bussi’s performance in Game 4 and why Brind’Amour shouldn’t hesitate to roll with him again in Game 5.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s talk goaltending, Hutts, Brandon Bussi. We were not sure who was going to be the Canes goalie. We speculated pretty heavily yesterday. I kind of got the hunch it was going to be Bussi, and it ultimately was. And not only did this guy play, he played very, very well, including a massive save with seven and a half minutes to go. He makes [18] of them on the night, but none were better than that cross-crease stop on Jack Eichel.
Carter Hutton: Huge. And Eichel got it up too. Like, it was at the top of his pad. It was elevated. It’s kind of a jam, right? Like, he’s coming across. He’s a righty. It sticks him a little bit. But then the fact is, from there, he’s just rock solid. I thought he was very aggressive. And something that I highlighted– I think a lot of people did as well– was like, how is Bussi going to respond having to sleep on a start and build and prepare and warm up and go through it? Because I understand the nervous anxiety that goes into that in that moment, and the fact that he hadn’t played in so long. He didn’t have a start. So good on him. He was very good. Even the save on the breakaway and the first on Mark Stone– I know Mark Stone gets one on breakaway, but he makes a save before that… There’s some timely saves. He looks steady. He looked good. And the Freddie situation is an interesting one, right? If he’s hurt, whatever’s going on, it felt like this was Bussi’s game no matter what. Like, I think that was my read going into it. The way that he played, I think he went in Game 3 on mop-up duty, but he played so well. It was like, why are we not going to this guy? He’s got 31 wins on the season for us. This is no slouch
Tyler Yaremchuk: So Rod Brind’Amour talking after the game simply says, ‘Freddie needed a break.’ He talked to the goalie coach. Decision was made. He needed a break. So they decided they don’t even dress him. If he needs a break, keep him away. He was apparently available as an EBUG. So they’re not giving him any sort of injury designation here, which leads to a whole bunch of other questions, but I’ll say this, Hutts, with how good Bussi was, like, let’s say Freddie is ready to go for Game 5. I’m not putting Freddie back in. Brandon Bussi… that game was the best goalie performance of the series so far.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…