Winless streaks and career-low stats plague Frederik Andersen. Is the Hurricanes' netminder truly past his prime, or just facing a mental hurdle?
It's been one of the toughest stretches of Frederik Andersen's career.
The 36-year-old netminder has gone winless in his last six starts and hasn't picked up a win now in nearly a month for the Carolina Hurricanes.
The team's number one goaltender has also seen his save percentage dip to 0.875 and his GAA to 3.15, both career lows.
But while many in the fanbase are turning away from the Danish netminder, Andersen isn't losing hope yet.
"I mean, the way I look at it, I've played worse hockey and had better numbers," Andersen said following a 5-1 loss to Toronto on Thursday. "It doesn't look good and obviously we're not getting the wins with me in net lately, but I still feel like I got my game. Maybe not perfectly where I want it, but like I've said, I've had worse stretches where things have looked better and gotten more wins. That's how I look at it and try to be positive and move on."
And really, that's the best mindset to have.
Because goaltending is as much of a mental battle as a physical one and once you stop believing that you can make that next save, it's over for you.
So all Andersen can do is continue to try and fight through it.
But just how bad has it been for the team's de facto number one netminder?
According to moneypuck.com, Andersen has a goals saved above expected of -2.5 (it was -0.9 before the Toronto game).
While that implies he's playing below expected level, it also sort of supports the argument that while he's allowing a lot of goals and piling up losses, he's not too far below where models would project him to be.
Most of the time when Andersen's getting beat, it's a high-danger look. He's not really giving up tons of softies.
It's just that he's not really been able to consistently bail his team out.
The Canes are surrendering 7.77 high-danger chances against per game at 5v5 with Andersen in net, and while that's not an ideal number, those shots are routinely getting by him.
In those moments in tight, tense games, you need your goaltender to bail your guys out.
And that's been the difference in his game and someone like Brandon Bussi, who hasn't had a big workload, but has come through in clutch situations time and time again.
In fact, Andersen has one of the worst high-danger save percentages in the entire league at 0.769. That ranks 39th amongst the 46 goaltenders to play in at least 10 games this season.
At the end of the day, it's hard to rationalize going back to Andersen any time soon though, especially with the way Bussi is playing.
He's not been as bad as many are making it out to be, but the results are the results.
You can't hide from that.
It's time to just ride that hot hand and hope some time off can help Andersen get back to the level he's capable of.
"The one thing about him is he doesn't get too high or too low when things are going well or not," said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour. "He's been around too long to get up or down."
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