So what does he do to stay sharp when he’s not seeing that much activity?<\/p>\n
“I mean, you can be active, obviously, play in the pocket sometimes, you can help your (defense) with that, and again, mentally just kind of reset every play and every whistle,” he said. “That’s some of the cues that I’ve used, just to stay focused.”<\/p>\n
Focus doesn’t seem to be an issue for Andersen, whether it be the next shot or the next game.<\/p>\n
“Really, just short-sighted, just be focused on today, and really, what can you get out of today that’s going to help us for tomorrow,” Andersen said. “And I think we’ve been really good at doing that as a group, focusing on small details in the game.”<\/p>\n
That focus has allowed the Hurricanes to go 5-0 in overtime games this postseason and go 5-0 on the road while playing in such hostile and electric environments like Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia in the second round and Bell Centre here in the conference final.<\/p>\n
Several times on Monday the Montreal fans tried to get to him, chanting, “Andersen, Andersen, Andersen.” Some may get rattled by those chants, but not the calm, cool Carolina goalie.<\/p>\n
“You definitely hear what they’re saying, they’re very loud in there, so that was really fun,” Andersen said. “I think the playoff atmospheres in general, up here especially too, is just cool experience. I always love coming to Montreal. It’s a very respected hockey town, and the fans are awesome, just into it the whole game, and obviously you hear the chants that are going around the whole game, and so we were very lucky.<\/p>\n
“The different series we’ve been in, obviously at home you have incredible, incredible atmospheres too. So that’s just what makes this time of year so special.”<\/p>\n
Andersen is no stranger to this time of year.<\/p>\n
Since he entered the NHL in 2013-14, he\u2019s played 96 postseason games, the third most in that span behind Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> (127) and Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>\u00a0(110).<\/p>\n In just his second season in the NHL, he brought the Anaheim Ducks to within one win of the Stanley Cup Final, but they lost Games 6 and 7 of the 2015 Western Conference Final to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks.<\/p>\n It would be some time before he got past the first round again. The next season in Anaheim the Ducks lost to the Nashville Predators in seven games in the first round, with Andersen starting five of the games. He then was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs on June 20, 2016, and was part of Toronto teams that were eliminated in the first round four straight years.<\/p>\n He signed with Carolina as a free agent and helped get them to the conference final in his first season, 2022-23, and again last season, but each time they went up against the Florida Panthers. They were swept in 2023 and lost in five games last year.<\/p>\n But with his 10th\u00a0win of the postseason on Monday — his first double-digit playoff win total since 2015 — he’s on the verge of finally getting a chance to play for the Cup.<\/p>\n According to NHL Stats, the 11 years between 10-win playoff campaigns is the longest in the NHL history, breaking the previous mark of eight held by Marc-Andre Fleury<\/a> (2009-18) and Chris Osgood<\/a>\u00a0(1998-2008).<\/p>\n “I think I’m just thankful for the opportunity, really,” Andersen said. “I’ve been through a lot that you said, but just again, just be grateful for being around and be able to play for this long. It’s been really cool. We all dream about these times of year, and it’s really special.”<\/p>\n And, despite his calm look, he’s having a blast.<\/p>\n “It’s been a ton of fun,” Andersen said. “So I think it makes it really fun to wake up every day and see the guys, and just be in this battle, and it’s fun to experience together.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So what does he do to stay sharp when he’s not seeing that much activity? “I mean, you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-667764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}