On a night the Hurricanes needed Petr Mrazek to be at his best, he was perfect
There are always going to be nights when a team needs its goaltender to play the way Petr Mrazek did Thursday because the rest of the group is half asleep or worn down or disengaged or otherwise outmatched. They come up during the season, inevitably so, those games when a goalie can steal a couple points otherwise undeserved.
This was different, in large part because whatever deficiencies the Carolina Hurricanes may have had in their delayed home opener against the Tampa Bay Lightning were really no fault of their own.
Circumstances dictated their performance more than anything, 10 days and only two practices since their last game: They got through the first period on adrenaline with a lot of jump and hit the wall in the second, when everything could have fallen apart. Mrazek made sure it did not, and left them room to rally in the third and, as it turned out, overtime.
The Hurricanes needed him to be good, given everything arrayed against them. He was perfect.
In a game that remained scoreless for 61 minutes and change before Martin Necas’ overtime game-winner clinched a 1-0 win, Mrazek was flawless, and he had to be. Whatever cracks the COVID pause and critical players still missing left in the Hurricanes’ facade, Mrazek papered over with relative ease.
“I‘d expected actually more rust to be honest with you,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said, “so I was happy with everything.”
Necas will get the credit for the game-winner and Jordan Staal credit for the pass that set it up after hopping off the bench, and deservedly so, but it was Mrazek who put the Hurricanes in that position.
When they didn’t score during that furious first period — and Andrei Svechnikov alone could have popped a couple past an equally stout Andrei Vasilevskiy — it fell to Mrazek to keep them afloat during the sluggish second, when the Lightning found its edge.
“I know a few guys were in the same boat,” Staal said, in his first game out of COVID quarantine. “You want to play a full 60 minutes, you really do, but they made a push in the second and ‘Raz’ did a good job of keeping it out of our net.”
Fourteen of Mrazek’s 32 saves came in that frame, with the game hanging in the balance. He also helped the Hurricanes’ patchwork penalty-kill go 4-for-4 on the kill in the absence of Jaccob Slavin, Teuvo Teravainen and others.
“I was lucky on a few of them,” Mrazek said. “We were off for nine days or so. We just had to battle through it. We came really hard, and we showed during the first period we were ready.”
The Hurricanes got their second wind in the third, an evenly played period no less exciting for the lack of goals, and had the puck for all of overtime. Sebastian Aho carried the puck through the neutral zone and hit Staal just after his skates hit the ice. Staal moved in and saucered a pass through Victor Hedman into the slot for Necas to corral and, finally, beat Vasilevskiy.
This was a steep challenge, given the circumstances, given the opponent, that required a resolute response. The Hurricanes certainly answered that call. And when they wavered, Mrazek answered for them. Every time.
