This article is all about how great PK played for us all year and earned is spot in net. Only to not be put in for the playoffs outside of 1 game vs the rangers. Whoever made the goalie decions for the playoffs had to have been drinking.
by blurry_da
6 Comments
Playing Freddie to start made sense because he was playing out of his mind. The moment he stopped stealing our games should have been an immediate tandem situation. Plus PK earned his shot in game 4 vs isles, I still am most baffled about not playing him there of all situations.
PK should have played in the Islanders series, he should have played before game 4 in NYR, all of that was on RBA – Freddie let in a leaky goal every single game he started, and it was part and parcel to why we lost the series against NYR AND why we lost last year against FL. hopefully RBA and company have more faith in Pyotr next season
If you are looking for a scapegoat, its Paul Schonefelder. The Canes’ goalie coach. But he knows A LOT more about the position than you or I. Maybe PK wasn’t 100% maybe he took his loss really hard and they didn’t think he was there mentally. It is what is at this point and playing the blame game doesn’t do much if anything at all.
Pyotr is my favorite Hurricane; I really hope he gets that vote of confidence next season because he’s earned it and he will be incredible.
The rule for Hurricanes playoff hockey is to leave the hot goalie in until he gets injured, then put in the young goalie so he can carry the team to a Cup championship.
It’s Freddie’s fault he didn’t have a Gerber-level injury to pave the way for Куч /s
What’s not to understand? [Andersen was the better goalie all year long.](https://imgur.com/a/andersen-vs-kochetkov-2023-2024-KGR4fvP) He was better for the season, he was better against playoff teams, he was better than Kochetkov even during Kochetkov’s best stretch. The only thing that held him back was the blood clotting issue, and he played even better than before after coming back from it.
Andersen continued to put up good numbers in the Islanders series. With Pesce out of the lineup and even falling down to allow a goal, he was still stealing almost half a goal per game and outperforming Kochetkov’s regular season numbers. His only loss was a game where we only scored twice in >80 minutes.
Even in the Rangers series where Andersen had 2 bad games, his SV% and GAA were basically identical to Kochetkov’s in the 1 game he played. And his goals saved over expected numbers were quite a bit better. We lost both of the games where Andersen was bad, but we didn’t win both of the games he was really good. Meanwhile, nothing from Kochetkov’s play indicated that he was going to steal a game in a way that Freddie didn’t.
Everybody loves Koochie because he’s fun and makes good quotes and tries audacious poke checks while Freddie just quietly goes about his business without smiling. But you don’t switch goalies in the playoffs unless you have a good reason, and we had no good reason.