Stanley Cup Final Notebook: Carolina has an unsurprising goaltending controversy

Maybe the most surefire way to know a team is in deep trouble is when people start saying, "Well, not all of those goals are on the goalie."

This implies that some unspoken number of the goals allowed — in a sport where relatively few goals are scored over 60-plus minutes of grueling playoff hockey — very much are his fault, and frankly, it usually only has to be three or so that get the job done.

They're saying that about Frederik Andersen now. And let's put it this way: When Mitch Marner is bombing an unscreened slapshot past you to wrap up a natural hat trick in under seven minutes of game time, it's bad news, and a 2-1 series with another game to go in Vegas.

And problematically for the Carolina Hurricanes, this was always the big point of concern. Does the team have a deficit when it comes to star power, especially up front? Sure. But they've shown they can grind out wins by completely neutralizing opposing offences, no matter how good their best players are. In the first three games of this Stanley Cup Final, the Hurricanes' defence, while hardly perfect, has been able to limit the Vegas Golden Knights to just 8.4 expected goals with Andersen in goal. The fact that they have scored 12 on him, then, is a problem.

The Playoff Freddie narrative was feeling dead and buried just a week ago. He not only played well across the first three rounds — losing, you'll also recall, just one game out of 13 — but he was often dominant. The occasional howler, sure, but ask any self-described goaltending guru what happens mentally when a goalie is facing just 20.7 shots per game on average. Some percentage of shots necessarily has to go in, but for Andersen, the team in front of him helped ensure there would be no real difficulties on that front.

Now? The Playoff Freddie narrative has risen from the grave and is shambling around, terrorizing his team. (One might ask whether the head contact he took on Vegas' second disallowed goal of Game 3 might have had something to do with the performance, but he stayed in the game without so much as consulting with the bench regarding his availability, so it's a moot point unless he suddenly can't go for Game 4.)

For Carolina, this was the risk. Not that you're unhappy with his performance in the playoffs when taken as a whole, because how could you be? But given the well-earned reputation for postseason frustration, and the fact that playoff backup Brandon Bussi was their best netminder in the regular season by a decent margin (not that it's a huge accomplishment given Andersen's .874 in 35 games), there are now uncomfortable questions that straight up have to be asked. Especially because Bussi stopped 18 of 19 in relief on Saturday night, and it's not like the game-winner beat him clean or anything even close. It was a pure fluke. And while that can be said of one, two, maybe three other Vegas goals in this series, you'll note again that they've scored a lot more than that.

We've seen all kinds of goalies get weirdly hot for a couple of months. The number of guys who posted 13-game runs with .930-something save percentages in recent years is longer than you might expect. So if this is Andersen turning back into a 36-year-old pumpkin who hasn't been a .900 goalie in two years, that was always in the range of outcomes. Down 2-1 in the Cup Final, though, can you keep betting on him to regain the form we saw recently? Or do you cut bait and go back to Bussi, who not only came on in relief on Saturday night, but also made several enormous saves on Grade-A chances from All-Star calibre players in the third period to make the comeback even remotely possible?

Unbelievably, John Tortorella is actually in a somewhat advantageous position here because he doesn't have to deal with those concerns. Yes, his starting goalie has been awful (12 goals against on 76, "good" for an .864 save percentage), but he doesn't have any kind of controversy to deal with. He's not gonna put Adin Hill in one of these games, barring an act of God. Rod Brind'Amour has no incentive to tip his hand here, but there's now officially a goaltending controversy, and "Who do you trust at this point?" is a question that absolutely has to be answered when there's a chance to go back to Carolina down 3-1.

And I don't think "stick with Andersen" is the correct response.

What's the next step?

Another thing that kinda underscores Carolina's problem in goal is the fact that, otherwise, things have gone about as well as you might want in the first three games here.

They've scored 12 times on a stout Vegas defence, gotten goals from eight different forwards, and points from all but two players total. They're dominating possession at 5-on-5 and generating a lot more scoring chances. They've scored three power-play goals and allowed just one; maybe you say they're taking too many penalties, but they're a minus-1 in power-play differential because the refs are managing the hell out of these games.

Given that Vegas inarguably has the skill and depth edge, the fact that they only can't seem to stop one guy per night (Marner and Brett Howden before him) while also getting to Hart with relative ease is all Brind'Amour can really ask of his team.

The concern was whether they could get Andrei Svechnikov going. And Seth Jarvis. And Sebastian Aho. They're all going, at least in fits and starts. Now, neither team wants to rely on scoring between two and four goals to mount a comeback, but you can't say the offence isn't doing enough to push the rock up the hill. In most Cup Finals during the salary-cap era, scoring four goals per game, including a bunch from the depth forwards, is going to get you to two or three wins no problem. Brind'Amour no doubt challenged his top guys, and they answered the call.

Could individual players give a little more here and there? Yes, of course. Some defensemen have struggled this series — Sean Walker and Alexander Nikishin quickly come to mind — and there have been some pretty gruesome giveaways that led directly to goals.

The thing about every Game 3 is that one team has to come out of it down 2-1 in the series, though you'd prefer not to be the road team in that scenario. Carolina has a lot of positives to draw from, including the fact that Hart and the team in front of him seem to be pretty easily gotten to. They're one bounce away from this series having an entirely different feel.

So, again, how confident are you that the goalie is going to make sure you're on the right side of that bounce again in Game 4?

Mitchst Valuable Player

Going into this Cup Final, you could have argued for a few players on Vegas to win the Conn Smythe as the playoff MVP.

Through three games, those arguments are settled. Pavel Dorofeyev, who had 10 goals in the first three rounds, hasn't found the scoresheet in these three games. Carter Hart, who helped power some mid-round success when the offence flagged a bit, has been as bad as Andersen. Brett Howden hadn't yet pushed his goal total to the playoff-leading 13 he got to by the end of Game 2, but people were looking more to Jack Eichel than Howden as a darkhorse pick anyway.

But Marner was already at the top of that heap, if by a narrow margin, and now it's academic. Through three games in this Cup Final, he's got 3-4—7. That already ties him for 86th in a single Cup Final, and he's guaranteed at least two more games. He has a point on more than half of Vegas's goals in this series.

When he's on the ice, Vegas is outscoring Carolina 8-3. When he's off, the Hurricanes have a 9-5 edge. Tortorella has done a good job of getting him out there against K'Andre Miller and Walker — the advantage of having guys like Mark Stone and Eichel to draw the focus of elite defensive players — but that's still a phenomenal number, and the underlyings are strong as well.

If the Knights win the Cup, there's nothing to talk about. This is academic. And if the Hurricanes win? Well, the Conn Smythe voters have the opportunity to do something pretty damn funny.