RALEIGH, N.C. — The horn sounded to give Carolina a long-awaited Eastern Conference Final breakthrough. And the Hurricanes immediately made their way across the ice to Frederik Andersen in the victorious crease.
Veteran forward Jordan Martinook gave Andersen a hearty hug, tapping the goalie on the helmet the entire time. Then came defenseman Jalen Chatfield. And coach Rod Brind'Amour followed with a long hug and shared some words, with Andersen pausing afterward to bend forward and collect himself before going through the traditional handshake line.
Andersen was steady again as the Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 on Friday night in Game 5 to send the Eastern Conference's top seed on to the Stanley Cup Final to face Vegas. It came after an emotionally wrenching 36 hours for Andersen, whose agent — former NHL playing great Claude Lemieux — took his own life Thursday.
”It’s been a difficult couple days, but the way we showed up today and the last couple days for the team for each other, it’s been incredible," Andersen said in a postgame interview with TNT. "I can’t talk enough good things about this team and the way they’ve supported me. It’s been awesome.”
Andersen's play has been one of the biggest stories in the Hurricanes' return to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since hoisting the Cup in 2006, back when coach Rod Brind'Amour was the captain. He overcame a shaky start to the year as waiver-wire wonder Brandon Bussi seemed ready to run away with the starting job, had a rejuvenating stretch of playing for Denmark in the Milan Cortina Olympics, played well down the stretch of the regular season and has been a leveled-up version of himself throughout the postseason.
Now the 36-year-old veteran is headed to the Cup Final for the first time in his career.
He was coming off his third shutout of the postseason with Wednesday's 4-0 road win as the Hurricanes asserted a tighter and tighter grip on control for the series. And that had come just two days after Lemieux had been the Canadiens' torch bearer before Carolina's 3-2 overtime win in Game 3.
Andersen didn't mind Lemieux participating in the pregame Montreal mojo for the franchise where he won one of his four Stanley Cups in 1986 as a rookie.
“He's like family,” Andersen told North State Journal afterward.
By Thursday, news had broken of Lemieux's death, with Andersen set to start as the Hurricanes led 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
“To be honest, wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to play,” Brind'Amour said. "You just don’t know how that was going to shake out. Obviously, he shook it off and battled through it. You saw the emotion after the game. Yeah, that’s a tough time for him. But he made us all proud, that’s for sure.”
Andersen finished with 23 saves and, as he has throughout the entire playoffs, came up with just about every timely save the Hurricanes needed against a skilled but desperate Canadiens team. And just as in the previous three wins, the Hurricanes were largely on their game to play a suffocating style that routinely won puck battles and kept the pressure on Montreal in its own end rather than giving up chances going the other way or shots attempted at Andersen.
He carried the shutout well into the third period before finally giving up a goal to Cole Caufield on the power play, though with Carolina already up 5-0.
Andersen continues to lead the postseason in goals-against average (1.41) and rank among the leaders in save percentage (.931).
“I know we were playing for him as best we could,” captain Jordan Staal said. "And it's a tough couple of days here for him. We're just family here, and we all felt that hurt. We tried to share as best we could and playing well in front of him as best we could do tonight.
“I thought he played unbelievable.”
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