LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hours before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, Rod Brind'Amour praised Brandon Bussi while also expressing some measure of relief that the Carolina Hurricanes did not need to turn to their backup goaltender during this playoff run.
“Haven’t had to use him, (and) to be honest, I hope we don’t because something’s gone wrong,” Brind'Amour said.
Turns out the late-blooming goaltender came out of the bullpen after all and backstopped the Hurricanes
to the Stanley Cup.
After Frederik Andersen was in net for every minute of the first three rounds and the start of the final, Bussi came in during Game 3 and finished out the series. He stopped 81 of the 87 shots he faced against Vegas as Andersen’s status was shrouded in mystery; the veteran from Denmark did not dress from Game 4 on.
Bussi, a 27-year-old from Long Island, was not an unknown quantity for the Hurricanes because he played in nearly half their games this season, winning 31 of his 39 starts to help Carolina earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference. He got a three-year extension at a bargain-basement $5.7 million price in February.
Before the past several months, he was on track for the career of a journeyman.
Going undrafted, he spend several years in the Boston Bruins' farm system with the Maine Mariners of the ECHL and Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League. Liking what they saw, the astute back-to-back champion Florida Panthers signed him last summer to be their third goalie behind Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov.
Trying to get him to the AHL in Charlotte, the Panthers lost Bussi when Carolina claimed him off waivers. Injuries to Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov thrust him into an important role for a top contender.
Bussi was even more needed in the final. He entered at the second intermission in Game 3 with the Hurricanes down 4-0. He stopped all 18 shots to allow a stirring comeback, and the only goal he allowed was the Golden Knights' winner in double overtime when the puck took a bad bounce off the end boards behind him and Bussi inadvertently kicked it in.
In the Game 6 clincher, Bussi denied playoff-leading goal-scorer Brett Howden, who got in all alone in the first period. He stopped Tomas Hertl on a 2-on-1 rush in the second, much to the joy of family members watching from the stands. Then Bussi robbed Hertl and Mark Stone on quality scoring chances in the final few minutes of regulation.
Hurricanes fans in Las Vegas chanted “Buss-i! Buss-i!” on the way to his third career shutout. A journeyman no more, Bussi is now a Stanley Cup champion.
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Whyno contributed from New York.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
