{"id":192133,"date":"2025-10-05T23:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T23:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192133\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T23:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T23:27:10","slug":"carolina-hurricanes-claim-brandon-bussi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192133\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Hurricanes Claim Brandon Bussi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Carolina Hurricanes have claimed netminder Brandon Bussi<\/a> off of waivers from the Florida Panthers, according to a team announcement<\/a>. The Hurricanes also announced a corresponding move, placing goalie Cayden Primeau<\/a> on waivers for the purposes of reassignment to the AHL\u2019s Chicago Wolves.<\/p>\n

At face value, this is something of a curious move, as the Hurricanes\u2019 NHL tandem of Frederik Andersen<\/a> and Pyotr Kochetkov<\/a> appears set in stone. It\u2019s possible the Hurricanes made this claim with an eye to goaltending depth in the AHL, but with Primeau already in place as the organizational number-three (assuming he clears waivers) there doesn\u2019t appear to be a significant need to add Bussi.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, at this point, the clearest explanation for this waiver claim is that it is some form of injury insurance, similar to how the Sabres<\/a> signed Alexandar Georgiev<\/a>\u00a0before an injury to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a> was reported.<\/p>\n

With that said, in the case that there is\u00a0not an un-reported injury that prompted this waiver claim, there is another potential explanation that relates to the current state of the Hurricanes\u2019 goalie depth:<\/p>\n

Taking a wider-view look at the Hurricanes\u2019 situation in net overall, the situation\u00a0behind Primeau in Chicago (assuming he clears waivers) is somewhat more wide open. The Wolves currently roster three goalies below Primeau on the depth chart: Ruslan Khazheyev<\/a>, Amir Miftakhov<\/a>, and Nikita Quapp<\/a>. The trio, combined, have just 42 games worth of AHL experience, and just one Khazheyev, played in the AHL last season. (.876 save percentage in 20 games played)<\/p>\n

Quapp, 22, spent 2024-25 with D\u00fcsseldorf in the German DEL, and is entering his first pro season in North America. Miftakhov, 25, was stellar in 2024-25 with the KHL\u2019s Ak Bars Kazan (.927 save percentage in 30 games) but has not played in North America since his 2021-22 split between the AHL\u2019s Syracuse Crunch and ECHL\u2019s Orlando Solar Bears.<\/p>\n

So, with that in mind, the reasoning behind this waiver claim becomes a bit clearer. Assuming there is no at-this-point unreported injury to either of the two Hurricanes\u2019 starters, and assuming the Hurricanes do not have an appetite to carry three goalies on their roster for an extended period (they\u2019ll need to because of this claim, at least for Monday), it seems as though Bussi could end up on waivers at some point in the short-term future.<\/p>\n

If this waiver claim was indeed made with an eye to reinforcing the Wolves due to the trio of young goalies\u2019 relative inexperience at the AHL level, it is understandable that the club would elect to claim Bussi. As things currently stand, the Hurricanes are one claim of Primeau, or one Primeau injury, from having to rely on that aforementioned trio to provide\u00a0all of the goaltending for AHL Chicago. While it\u2019s possible one (or more) of that trio is more than up to the task of playing a heavy workload without much prior AHL experience, the Hurricanes can\u2019t be blamed if they have some uneasiness considering that prospect.<\/p>\n

So, with this claim of Bussi, they have given themselves an opportunity to protect Chicago from that potential scenario. The 27-year-old Bussi is an ideal candidate for this kind of waiver claim for multiple reasons. First and foremost, he has no NHL experience, so he would not be the kind of goalie a team in need of NHL reinforcement in net would be expected to claim. That increases the odds Bussi will pass through waivers should the Hurricanes attempt to send him down.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Florida Panthers\u2019 AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, are still left with four netminders under contract after Bussi\u2019s claim. Although none of Cooper Black<\/a>, Kirill Gerasimyuk<\/a>, Evan Cormier<\/a>, or Michael Simpson<\/a> are particularly experienced at the AHL level, the sheer volume of netminders set to compete for a role in the crease in Charlotte would, theoretically, decrease the odds that Florida will try to re-claim Bussi should Carolina try to sneak him through waivers.<\/p>\n

If one of those goalies has been particularly impressive in the training camp\/preseason process and looks poised to steal a greater role in the AHL than the Panthers previously expected, those odds of a re-claim from the Panthers would decrease further still.<\/p>\n

Bussi\u2019s stellar performance in the AHL thus far in his career (.915 save percentage across 111 games) does complicate those odds, but if the Hurricanes have room to keep him on their NHL roster through Monday, it may be worth the chance of trying to place him back on waivers in order to reinforce Chicago. Based on their claim today, it appears the Hurricanes might agree.<\/p>\n

This entire AHL explanation could be rendered meaningless if one of the Hurricanes\u2019 NHL goalies is injured, of course, or if the Hurricanes surprisingly decide they want to carry three goalies. But at this point, it does appear that placing Bussi on waivers once again is the most easy-to-imagine scenario for how things will play out in Carolina\u2019s crease moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Hurricanes have claimed netminder Brandon Bussi off of waivers from the Florida Panthers, according to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[6066,94982,49,48,748,95830,747,448,82,48340],"class_list":{"0":"post-192133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ahl","9":"tag-brandon-bussi","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","13":"tag-cayden-primeau","14":"tag-florida-panthers","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-waivers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}