RALEIGH — The Hurricanes’ injury bug has taken another bite.
Goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov, who has been in and out of the lineup all season with a lingering lower-body injury, will have surgery and likely miss the rest of the season, coach Rod Brind’Amour said before Monday’s game against the New York Rangers.
“It’s what he’s been dealing with all year,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s decided to have surgery. So he’s going to be out for, probably for the year.”
Kochetkov is 6-2-0 with a 2.33 goals-against average, .899 save percentage and shutout in nine appearances this season. The 26-year-old Russian has the rest of this season and one more year remaining on a four-year, $8 million contract he signed in November 2022.
“He didn’t feel right all year, he’s been dealing with it,” Brind’Amour said of Kochetkov. “He’s been playing great, so that’s the hard part because he’s been kind of fighting through it. But he just doesn’t want to continue that way. So we’ll get it fixed and go from there.”
The loss solidifies Brandon Bussi, who 2½ months ago had never played an NHL game, as the team’s No. 1 goalie. Bussi, 27, has been one of the surprises of the season, going 12-1-1 in his first 14 starts and catapulting past Kochetkov and Frederik Andersen as the Hurricanes’ top option in net.
Andersen, meanwhile, has stumbled to a 5-8-2 record with an .869 save percentage, and he is winless in his last seven starts. The 36-year-old, who has 313 career regular season wins, has never finished a season with a losing record and will now join Bussi as the team’s tandem in net.
“We’re going to need him,” Brind’Amour said of Andersen. “The luxury we had is no longer a luxury anymore, where we had three guys to rely on. Now it’s, ‘Nope.” It’s pretty clear we’ve got these two guys, and they’ve got to figure it out.
“That’s it’s been kind of our motto here all year: No matter who’s going in, you’ve to figure it out.”
The Hurricanes have battled injuries all season. Defenseman Jaccob Slavin has played in just five games, finally returning from a lower-body injury and playing three games only to suffer an upper-body injury on Dec. 19. Top goal scorer Seth Jarvis, like Slavin, is week to week with an injury suffered in the same game. Only one defenseman, Sean Walker, has played in all of Carolina’s games, and just seven Hurricanes players in all have suited up in all 37.
“This is kind of unprecedented,” Brind’Amour said. “We went a couple years ago when we didn’t have our D get any injuries, so we were pretty lucky, and now it’s been all year. Every team has certain degree of it. … But you’ve got to figure it out.”
The Hurricanes will have to overcome the Kochetkov injury for the balance of the season, but the team has still managed to climb to the top of the Eastern Conference and Metropolitan Division, boasting a 23-11-3 record that is fourth best in the NHL.
“It’s testament to the guys that are playing every night,” Brind’Amour said. “They’re battling through their stuff and just figuring it out, right? I think the guys we are throwing in there, that we’ve talked about, really, they’re playing in situations that we would never thought they’d be playing in, but we don’t have a choice. And they’re done a great job, so that’s going to have to continue.”
Notes: The Hurricanes claimed center Noah Philp off waivers from the Oilers. … Carolina recalled defenseman Gavin Bayreuther before the game, and Brind’Amour said the team had a couple of defensemen questionable for the game against the Rangers.
