Winless streaks and declining stats signal a stark reality for the veteran netminder. It's time for a change in Carolina's crease.
After a season full of struggles and now two months without even a single win, it's becoming more and more clear that the game is starting to leave Frederik Andersen behind.
The 36-year-old veteran netminder has a 5-9-2 record in 16 starts this season and has now gone winless in eight straight starts.
In fact, Andersen's 0.865 save percentage is the second worst amongst all netminders to appear in at least 10 games this season, behind only Sam Montembeault's 0.863.
Because of that, the Danish netminder has seen a fairly steady fall from grace this season in Carolina as his inconsistent play supplanted him from the de facto number one goalie all the way down to the number three.
That wasn't so much of an issue for Carolina when their two other netminders were playing so well, but now that Pyotr Kochetkov is going to be sidelined for the remainder of the season due to upcoming hip surgery, the Canes can no longer hide Andersen and that's a major issue.
It's not like Andersen has been the sole problem in his losing streak — I've fought for him after multiple losses due to the odd nature and just downright putrid luck of some of his goals against — but it's just gotten to a point.
The Canes don't need a guy to steal them games. All they need is someone who just won't lose them games and unfortunately for the Danish netminder, that's all he's been doing as of late.
While many might say that the team just needs to ride Bussi, the Hurricanes also really don't want to put too much strain on a rookie who's now all of a sudden the only thing keeping this thing from going completely off the rails.
So Carolina is really between a rock and a hard place, as they don't really have any other options in net behind Bussi and Andersen.
It's understandable why the team has been giving Andersen games and hoping beyond hope that he would find his way out of his slump, because it would be the most convenient solution to the problem for all parties.
"We're going to need him," Brind'Amour said on Andersen when Kochetkov's surgery became public. "The luxury we had is no longer a luxury anymore. We had three guys in our lineup and now it's pretty clear that we have just these two guys and they have to figure it out. That's been our motto here all year. No matter who's going in, you have to figure it out."
But Andersen just hasn't been able to figure it out and it's at a point now where it's costing the team valuable points in an extremely tight conference (every Eastern Conference team is currently sitting above 0.500).
To me, the biggest concern really is that the team in front of him has seemingly subconsciously given up on Andersen.
Multiple players have mentioned this year how much of a difference confidence in a goaltender can make when talking about Brandon Bussi and his unreal run...
"Once you feel confident in a goalie, the game comes easy and I feel like that's what we feel as a group," said Andrei Svechnikov.
"Confidence is big to have in your goalie," said Jackson Blake. "When he's in the net, we have a lot of confidence right now."
While confidence in the man in the crease can elevate a team, the same is true the opposite way whether players admit that or not.
The simple fact of the matter is that guys play differently when they aren't confident in a netminder. They grip sticks tighter, they overthink decisions and when things get tough, part of them just gives up because it's just like constantly fighting an uphill battle.
And to me, it looks like the team is clearly lacking confidence in Andersen, whether that's fair to him or not. Tuesday night in Pittsburgh looked like a disaster and there's been multiple games this season with Andersen in net, where the team just seems to completely shut down after a tough break or goal against.
That lack of confidence is creating this constant feedback loop of poor play and bad results and it's something the organization just can't allow to continue.
The whole situation feels awfully similar to what happened to Andersen's former partner Antti Raanta a few years back. His game started to go and you could see the difference in the way the team in front of him performed.
Eventually, the team moved on from him and that was that for his NHL career.
It's a tough business, and a decision like this would be especially so given what Andersen has meant to the organization.
In five years in Carolina, Andersen has the fifth most wins in franchise history, the second best career save percentage, the best goals against average, the second most playoff wins and he's also led the team to two Eastern Conference Final appearances. He's also just a good guy and a very well liked player in the room.
Sure, there's been ups and downs in his career, much like any player, but he's been a major part of the team's success over the last five seasons and that shouldn't be simply overlooked and forgotten either.
When he's on his game, he's a true difference maker in net and can be one of the top goaltenders in the league.
Just look at last season. He had middling numbers in the regular season, but then proceeded to be the best netminder in the league through the first two rounds of the playoffs.
There's been flashes of that same player throughout the year, but the lack of full 60-minute performances shows that perhaps time is catching up on a player who's got a lot of games and a lot of injuries under his belt.
I would love nothing more than to see Andersen bounce back to form and be the player we've known him to be here in Carolina, but it's getting harder to believe that that player is still in there.
And at the end of the day, this is a results driven business.
I know that he's been the recipient of some bad luck goals and some piss-poor play in front, but you'd think that at some point in two months, he'd be able to steal at least one win.
His inability to do that has been his own undoing and now the organization has to step up and make a difficult decision, whether that's calling a guy up or making a trade, because this just clearly isn't working.
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