How Alex Nedeljkovic changed the Hurricanes’ plans for a playoff goalie rotation

If it seemed like Alex Nedeljkovic went a long way to sprint the full length of the PNC Arena ice to join the celebration after Jordan Staal’s overtime winner on Tuesday, that’s really a short journey compared to the arc of his season. From clearing waivers in January to an immovable object in the Carolina Hurricanes’ net, the rookie goalie has upended not only expectations but his coach’s planning and past practice.

Nedeljkovic was expected to make his sixth straight playoff start in Game 6 at the Nashville Predators on Thursday night, potentially the first time a Carolina goalie has started every game of a playoff series since Petr Mrazek did the same against the Washington Capitals in 2019.

That was not how Rod Brind’Amour drew it up two weeks ago.

But after stopping 165 of 178 shots in the series to stake the Hurricanes to a 3-2 lead, Nedeljkovic has taken all of the Hurricanes’ pre-playoff thinking and thrown it right out the window.

The Hurricanes went into the playoffs expecting to rotate Nedeljkovic and Mrazek, the way they have done it all season. The discussions that go into those day-before-game decisions, between Brind’Amour and his goalie coach — Jason Muzzatti the previous two years, Paul Schonfelder this year — and his staff have been agonizing at times in the past.

Nedeljkovic has made them moot.

“We talked about it enough, we planned for Game 1 and then we were just going to assess,” Brind’Amour said. “We knew that we had Petr, we had (James Reimer) too, but we kind of decided on those two guys. I had it all in my head we would go back and forth initially. Honestly, Ned’s play just said, ‘Hey we can just keep him in there.’ That’s how it has, I guess, worked out.”

In Brind’Amour’s first season, Mrazek was a clear No. 1 but the Hurricanes had to go to Curtis McElhinney when Petr Mrazek was injured. McElhinney closed out a sweep of the New York Islanders, but Mrazek was back in net for Game 1 against the Boston Bruins in the third round. Brind’Amour then went back and forth between the two looking for a hot hand — and not finding one — in the sweep.

In 2020, Reimer started the third game of the preliminary round after Mrazek won the first two, completing that sweep. Both played in the first-round loss to the Bruins. That was a full-on rotation from the start.

That was the plan again this spring, to alternate between Nedeljkovic and Mrazek, with Reimer held back in reserve. Stay fresh. Ride the hot hand. Nedeljkovic got first call, after Mrazek didn’t play great (behind an admittedly subpar lineup in low-stakes conditions) in the final regular-season game at Nashville.

And then Nedeljkovic proceeded to make it impossible to take him out. If there was a chance to switch, it was in Game 3, to throw Mrazek into a hostile environment on the road instead of a first-time playoff goalie. But Nedeljkovic threw a shutout in Game 2 and Brind’Amour stuck with the rookie, who was dynamite in the double-overtime loss and still hasn’t left the net.

“If he feels 100 percent, there’s no reason to take him out,” Brind’Amour said. “He didn’t lose the job. He didn’t play poorly.”

That is, though, a departure from past practice. By that same logic, Mrazek would have been in net for Game 3 of the New York Rangers series last August, but Brind’Amour deliberately wanted to get Reimer the work, figuring he’d need both goalies. Which he did.

Now the Hurricanes are in a situation where Mrazek hasn’t played in 17 days, although it still figures he’ll see action at some point. Martin Gerber may have lost the starting job to Cam Ward early in the 2006 playoffs, but he came out of the where-are-they-now file to win a key game at the Buffalo Sabres in the conference finals.

Still, Brind’Amour, who has steadfastly cycled through his goalies both in the regular season and the postseason, mostly by choice but also sometimes by necessity, finds himself in an unusual position: a coach tying his team’s fate to an all-of-a-sudden No. 1 goalie.