SI:AM | Hurricanes Snap Two-Decade Stanley Cup Drought Behind Unlikely Hero

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I was in the car for the first half of the Spurs-Knicks game on Saturday, but that meant I got to hear Clyde Frazier join the home radio crew in the booth for the second quarter, which made it all worth it. I wish Clyde could have been on the call with Mike Breen as the Knicks clinched.

In today’s SI:AM:
🇪🇸 Spain’s 18-year-old superstar
🗽 Jalen Brunson’s place in NY history
👨‍⚖️ Pivotal week in college sports

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Not as long a drought as the Knicks, but still

The Hurricanes are Stanley Cup champions for the first time in 20 years.

Carolina defeated the Golden Knights in Vegas on Sunday night, 3–0, to claim its second title and first since 2006.

“That’s a lot of years,” Canes veteran Jordan Staal said. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since I got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. What a feeling, what a battle. The boys were grinding today, my goodness. So many individual efforts just to keep the puck out of our net. It was an amazing ride. I’m just so proud of these guys.”

There are so many fascinating narratives surrounding the Canes’ win. Franchise icon Rod Brind’Amour lifted the Cup for the second time, this time as coach after captaining the team on the ice during its run two decades ago. The 37-year-old Staal won the Conn Smythe Trophy (the playoff MVP), becoming the oldest player ever to do so. Staal won the Cup in 2009 with the Penguins, too, making his 17-year wait for another championship the longest gap between titles for any player in NHL history. The Canes’ win is also just the second major men’s pro sports championship for a team from North Carolina. (The NWSL’s North Carolina Courage won back-to-back titles in 2018 and ’19.)

But the most fascinating storyline of all—by far—is the play of Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi.

Bussi, a 27-year-old rookie, started the final three games of the series after not appearing in any of the team’s first 15 playoff games. And he saved the best for last. Bussi was incredible in Game 6, stopping all 22 shots he faced, including a litany of jaw-dropping saves. He stood tall in the final minutes as the Golden Knights peppered him with shots in a desperate attempt to save their season.

Bussi’s first appearance of the postseason came in the third period of Game 3. Veteran Frederik Andersen, the usual starter, was pulled from the game after allowing four goals in a span of six minutes in the second period. Bussi kept Vegas off the board in the third as the Canes pulled off a furious comeback, although the Knights beat him in overtime to take a 2–1 series lead.

It appeared as though the decision to go with Bussi over Andersen in that period and in each of the three subsequent games was performance-based, but Brind’Amour revealed after Sunday’s game that Andersen was dealing with a knee injury.

Whatever the reason for Bussi’s being pressed into action, his performance made him one of the most unlikely heroes in Stanley Cup history. Bussi is just the sixth goalie in the expansion era (since the 1967–68 season) to win a Stanley Cup as a rookie. The others are Ken Dryden (’71), Patrick Roy (’86), Cam Ward (2006), Matt Murray (’16 and ’17) and Jordan Binnington (’19).

But unlike the others on the list, Bussi was not a celebrated prospect. He played three seasons in college at Western Michigan before signing with the Bruins as an undrafted free agent. He then spent four seasons in the minors, bouncing between the AHL’s Providence Bruins and ECHL’s Maine Mariners. After last season, Bussi was signed by the defending champion Panthers, but they had to expose him to waivers to send him down to the minors during final roster cuts in October. The Canes claimed him and added him to the opening night roster. (Luckily for Bussi, he was already driving to North Carolina when the Canes claimed him, because Florida’s AHL affiliate plays in Charlotte.)

Bussi played well in the regular season, posting an .894 save percentage in 39 games, but Brind’Amour gave Andersen (.874 regular-season save percentage) the nod in the postseason. That meant that when Bussi entered Game 3 in relief of Andersen, it was his first game action in nearly two months. Imagine that. An undrafted rookie who spent four years in the minors and got cut right before the start of the season saw his first competitive action in nearly eight weeks in the most pressure-packed scenario possible. And he didn’t flinch. Now he’s a champion.

“Unbelievable,” Canes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said of Bussi’s performance. “He played so good. We don’t win that game tonight without him.”

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The top five…

… things I saw yesterday:
5. All the Scottish fans at Fenway Park, the day after Scotland’s 1–0 win over Haiti in Foxborough.
4. Bobby Witt Jr.’s diving catch at shortstop.
3. Livano Comenencia’s goal for Curaçao against Germany. Germany won, 7–1, but it’s still amazing that tiny Curaçao, which has a population of just 155,000 (about the size of Springfield, Mass.) scored against one of the best teams in the world.
2. Koki Ogawa’s powerful header on Japan’s late equalizer against the Netherlands. (The goal was officially credited to Daichi Kamada, who had the ball deflect off his head by pure happenstance.)
1. All 23 runs the Rockies scored against the A’s. Incredibly, this game was not at Coors Field. The offensive explosion occurred in Sacramento, which is just 26 feet above sea level.

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