Category 5: Goalies, Vegas visit, power play and Hurricanes Quarter-Century Team

Hurricanes forward Martin Necas celebrates with defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere after scoring during the third period of Carolina's loss Wednesday in Buffalo. (Adrian Kraus / AP Photo)

RALEIGH — The Hurricanes return home looking to gain some traction after losing consecutive games to bottom-feeding Anaheim and Buffalo.

1. Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen has been cleared to play ahead of schedule and will back up Pyotr Kochetkov on Friday against the visiting Golden Knights.

Andersen has been out since late October and underwent knee surgery Nov. 22. He was expected to miss 8-12 weeks after the procedure, but the 35-year-old goalie said his recovery allowed him to return a week earlier than initial estimates.

“I had a good indication right away that the surgeon liked what was going on,” Andersen said. “And (I) just tried to push it as quick as I could without any real setbacks. Obviously it’s not going to be linear, but I’m really happy with the process, everyone with the team and the guys in the training room. I’ve been, overall, really happy with how the process has been going.”

Andersen’s return should help stabilize a goaltender’s room that has housed five different players. Andersen was 3-1-0 with a .941 save percentage and 1.48 goals-against average before being hurt Oct. 26 in Seattle.

“We know how good Freddie is,” defenseman Sean Walker said after Friday’s morning skate. “I only got to play with him those four games, and he was unbelievable. So I’m excited to see him back in there and go the rest of the way and have a really strong end to his season.”

The veteran goalie is no stranger to returning from long absences. He played in six games for Carolina last season before missing four months after being diagnosed with a blood-clotting issue. He won 9 of 10 starts down the stretch but was 6-4 in the playoffs with a 2.62 goals-against average and .895 save percentage.

“I think you take what you can in terms of any experience,” Andersen said. “As you guys know, I’ve had some adversity — personal adversity, type of stuff — the last calendar year or two, and just having that trust in myself that I can get through it.”

2. It’s been a wild three months since Andersen went on the shelf. Along with Andersen and Kochetkov, Spencer Martin, Yaniv Perets and Dustin Tokarski all saw time in the Carolina net, with Kochekov starting 28 of the season’s first 45 games.

Perets played just over 8 minutes in relief during a blowout loss in Florida, but Martin and Tokarski were pushed into prominent roles due to Andersen’s injury.

Martin, the de facto No. 3 goalie to start the season, earned his first career shutout on Nov. 16 at home against Ottawa but otherwise struggled, posting a 3-4-1 record with a 3.89 goals-against average and .846 save percentage.

That led Carolina to sign Tokarski, who had been on a professional tryout with their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, on Dec. 2. Tokarski — a 35-year-old journeyman who had played for five other NHL teams during his career and won a Calder Cup in 2019 with the Hurricanes’ then-top affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers — had started the season without a contract and hadn’t played in the NHL since a four-game stint with the Penguins in 2022-23.

The veteran was very good for the Hurricanes in six starts, winning four and posting a 2.18 goals-against average and .902 save percentage as a bridge to Andersen’s return.

Since Kochetkov (16-9-2, 2.54, .901) could not definitively seize the No. 1 job in Andersen’s absence, the duo will play the second half of the season for the right to be Carolina’s goalie come playoff time.

“That’s the most important position,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said following Friday’s morning skate, “and it’s tough when we always seem to be juggling that around the last couple years. … Hopefully Freddie gets going here and can solidify that position for us.”

3. The Hurricanes have lost two straight, scored just six goals in their last three games and haven’t strung together three consecutive wins since before Thanksgiving. Their reward is the annual visit from the Golden Knights, who have the NHL’s top record and look every bit a Stanley Cup contender.

While there’s star power throughout Vegas’ lineup, it’s 24-year-old Pavel Dorofeyev who leads the Golden Knights in goals with 19. Most impressive is that Dorofeyev has done it without taking advantage of a high shooting percentage.

Jack Roslovic leads Carolina with 17 goals but has done so by converting nearly 20% of his shots. He came into the season with a career shooting percentage of 11.7% and converted on nearly a quarter of his shots in the 2024 portion of this season’s schedule. Roslovic has since gone cold — he has no goals on 12 shots in eight games in January.

Dorofeyev, meanwhile, is scoring on 14.6% of history his shots — exactly the conversion rate he had in the first 67 games of his career over three seasons. Most impressive is that Dorofeyev has scored his goals — eight of which have come on the power play — without much help from Jack Eichel.

Eichel is fifth in the league with 44 assists, but he’s only factored in on two of Dorofeyev’s goals. Dorofeyev had his first career hat trick earlier in the week, scoring three in Vegas’ loss to Minnesota on Sunday.

4. The Hurricanes boosted their scoring early in the year with one of the league’s best power plays. In the first 27 games of the season, Carolina scored on the power play in 18 games and was 26 of 88 (29.5%).

Since then, the Hurricanes have scored on the power play in just five of 18 games and converted on 5 of 50 (10%) opportunities. A big reason for those struggles was the absence of Shayne Gostisbehere, who quarterbacks the top unit and missed eight games during that stretch.

In the two games since Gostisbehere returned to the lineup, Carolina is 1 for 5 and also scored a 6-on-5 goal against Buffalo on which he earned a primary assist.

The Hurricanes can’t be expected to score on nearly a third of their power play chances, but if the team can get back to scoring on 20-25% of its opportunities, it can expect to fare better in tight games.

5. I was fortunate enough to be chosen to vote on the Hurricanes’ Quarter-Century Team for NHL.com. I don’t think there were many surprises, though my votes did differ from the final teams.

On the first team are forwards Sebastian Aho, Rod Brind’Amour and Eric Staal, defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Glen Wesley, and goalie Cam Ward.

While the first team posted by the NHL is in alphabetical order based by position, my ballot consisted of the same players, though in this ordered ranking:

Forwards

  1. Eric Staal
  2. Rod Brind’Amour
  3. Sebastian Aho

Defensemen

  1. Jaccob Slavin
  2. Glen Wesley

Goaltender

  1. Cam Ward

Where my ballot differed from the final product was on the second team, which consisted of (again, listed alphabetically) forwards Ron Francis, Jordan Staal and Justin Williams, defensemen Justin Faulk and Bret Hedican, and goaltender Arturs Irbe.

Here’s my second team, again ranked for ballot purposes:

Forwards

  1. Jordan Staal
  2. Erik Cole
  3. Justin Williams

Defensemen

  1. Justin Faulk
  2. Brett Pesce

Goaltender

  1. Arturs Irbe

I left Francis and Hedican off my team in favor of Cole and Pesce. Here was my thinking.

Undoubtedly, Francis is among the NHL’s greatest players, ranking second all time in assists and fifth in points. Much of that, however, was done in Hartford and Pittsburgh, not from 2000 to 2004 when Francis played in Carolina during the 25-year window.

From Jan. 1, 2000, until he was traded to Toronto on March 9, 2004, Francis had 88 goals and 183 assists for 271 points in 312 regular-season games. Those are good numbers, especially for a player in his late 30s/early 40s on a middling team (Stanley Cup Final run aside), but nothing like Francis put up earlier in his career.

Cole, meanwhile, had 168 goals and 363 points in 557 regular-season games during two stints in Raleigh. Francis produced about a third more points per game during the 25-year window, but Cole’s nine seasons with the Hurricanes established him as one of the game’s elite power forwards. He also played a significant role in the 2006 Stanley Cup team, even if an injury knocked him out of the lineup for more than three months until his dramatic return for Games 6 and 7 of the final.

Hedican also played an important role on that championship team and finished his career with 369 games with Carolina. Although he was never a point producer with the Hurricanes (19 goals, 82 assists for 101 points) or elsewhere, he was a key player nonetheless.

I still picked Pesce over him. Pesce played 627 games in Raleigh before leaving for New Jersey last offseason as a free agent, totaling 205 points. Pesce, while by no means an offensive threat, was a better point producer and, one could argue, a better defender.

I also considered Tim Gleason, who had the misfortune of playing on mostly bad Hurricanes teams, but I ultimately selected Pesce.