With Frederik Andersen hurt, Hurricanes are Pyotr Kochetkov’s team — for now
Not that playoff teams are particularly forthcoming about injuries this time of year, but the fact that the answer to any questions about Frederik Andersen is not “he’s fine, he’s here today,” suggests that this is at least a day-to-day, if not a week-to-week concern.
If you don’t get the easy answer, it’s probably not going to be the answer you want.
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour didn’t have any answer at all on Monday, because he said Andersen was meeting with doctors instead of his teammates at the Lenovo Center as the Hurricanes stayed off the ice.
In either case, there’s only one path forward in net for the Hurricanes on Tuesday, and that’s for Pyotr Kochetkov to start.
Even if Andersen is fine, it’s a good time, with a 3-1 lead on the New Jersey Devils, to get Kochetkov some more action. Which is the opposite of what happened Sunday, which was the worst possible time, after Timo Meier shoved Andersen into his own net and Andersen promptly exited the game with a still-undisclosed injury.
Kochetkov hadn’t played in 11 days as Andersen played the regular-season finale and the first 3½ games of the series against the Devils, but the Hurricanes were going to need him at some point. Everyone knew it. Not necessarily because Andersen was going to get hurt, although that’s certainly happened a lot, but because this always has been and still is a two-goalie team.
So that point is now. It might have been anyway. The fact that Kochetkov played so well after an absolutely atrocious start, giving up a terrible goal on the second shot he faced — by Meier of all people — only to stop the next (and final) 13 shots he faced to nail down a 5-2 win and put the Devils on the brink of elimination indicates Kochetkov regained his form quickly.
“It was obviously a little dicey there at the start,” Brind’Amour said. “He doesn’t want that goal to go in too often. But again, how do you respond? He looked fine. He didn’t look shaky. That, to me, is the key. He hadn’t been in for a while, and obviously that happened, and it could have went the other way. But it didn’t, and I give him a lot of credit.”
The Hurricanes also refrained from settling any scores Sunday; that may change Tuesday if they jump on the Devils early again, because Meier has somehow accomplished the nigh-impossible task of replacing Erik Haula as the Hurricanes’ least favorite Devil. (Old-timers might like a word about Scott Stevens, but this is 2025.)
Meier had played the first three games of the series right on the edge, then crossed it in Game 4. He might not have been trying to hit Andersen hard, just rattle a goalie who had tormented him throughout the series, but there’s no question he wasn’t pushed into the crease in the slightest, and that even if his shove wasn’t supposed to cause damage, it had the same consequences as if he’d clearly intended to injure the goalie.
(The lack of an initial call left the officials in a difficult position, stuck between issuing a five-minute major and no penalty at all. It was hard to argue that the contact deserved a major penalty, but there was certainly an argument for a minor for goaltender interference or roughing, if either referee had the vision to determine the contact was initiated entirely by Meier.)
Either way, the results were the same: Andersen is out, and while an update on his status may yet be forthcoming, it’s not the simple one everyone around the team was hoping to hear. But the way Kochetkov played in relief Sunday also means it’s not necessarily the crisis it would be otherwise.
“Obviously super happy for him,” said Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov, whose second career playoff hat trick led the way offensively. “He played unreal game. It must be so hard when you don’t play for two weeks to come back and do what he did. It’s really hard. I was a little bit nervous, you know. But he did an excellent job for sure.”
So it’s Kochetkov’s team Tuesday. And perhaps beyond, but Tuesday at the least.
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This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 1:45 PM.
