It’s been just over a week since the Carolina Hurricanes lost both Petr Mrazek and James Reimer to injury and after standing pat at the trade deadline, the Hurricanes have been forced to rest their playoff hopes on their AHL goaltending duo of Anton Forsberg and Alex Nedeljkovic.

So far, it hasn’t gone very well.

In the three games the duo has had to split, the Hurricanes are 0-2-1 and with Mrazek likely still out for a little while, Carolina isn’t in a great spot.

Brind’Amour says it doesn’t look like Mrazek is close to returning.

— Chip Alexander (@ice_chip) March 2, 2020

It took all of 51 seconds for Dallas to beat Nedeljkovic in his first game of the year. He can’t really be blamed for most of the goals but you just can’t allow four goals on 16 shots. Of course, the Hurricanes couldn’t bury their chances but to outshoot a team 41-16 and lose 4-1 is rough. It was a bad night for Nedeljkovic and the fact is, he got drastically outplayed by Anton Khudobin in the goaltending battle.

So Anton Forsberg started against Colorado. He wasn’t bad and again, the goals weren’t his fault but Forsberg just was not as good as Pavel Francouz. Carolina lost the goaltending battle again.

Forsberg started again against Montreal and was pulled after allowing a third goal midway through the second period. I actually thought both Forsberg and Nedeljkovic did what they could against the Canadiens and can’t be faulted for the loss. But the same trend remained: the Hurricanes weren’t getting the saves they needed and were consistently losing goaltending battles.

It’s important to keep in mind that even when Mrazek does return, he and his .904 save percentage aren’t necessarily going to bring certain steadiness to the crease. He’ll surely help but it’s not like the Hurricanes will suddenly have rock solid goaltending.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: the Hurricanes are in a bad spot right now. Of course the reasonable reaction would be to have patience with Forsberg and Nedeljkovic and to hold off criticism until they really have time to adjust to the NHL. But the Hurricanes don’t have time to be patient.

The good news is they’re just three points back of the final wildcard spot with three games in hand on Columbus. But even if they have a good opportunity to sneak their way into the playoffs, they may not get a lot of help from Forsberg and Nedeljkovic along the way.


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