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For goaltender Brandon Bussi of the Carolina Hurricanes, it was all a blur.
The clock winding down. Jalen Chatfield behind the net with the puck. The final horn. Teammates streaming on the ice, a mass rush in his direction. Gloves and helmets in the air.
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The Stanley Cup had been won. The Stanley Cup.
Bussi said so much flashed through his mind.
“It’s a combination of nothing and everything going on, because it’s such a surreal moment,” he said Thursday after training camp practice. “You imagine it so many times during your life, and the fact that it happened … in the moment, you almost don’t know what to do. Just throw your gloves up and start celebrating.
“It was a beyond–special moment. We worked so hard to make it happen. And now we’re even hungrier in a sense that we know what that feeling is like. Being ecstatic, pure joy. You’re hungry for it now. You want it again.”
The Hurricanes put in their first practice of preseason training camp Thursday and Bussi was back in net again. This time, as the No. 1 goalie. The Bus.
Not that he’s claiming the position or taking anything for granted in camp. Goalie Frederik Andersen left in free agency, off to Edmonton, but Pyotr Kochetkov also wants the net and will compete for it.
“I’ve played one full year of NHL hockey and I’m here to continue to prove myself,” Bussi said Thursday. “I see it as getting ready for the season.
“I don’t have any goals this year, other than winning the Stanley Cup. I don’t have any goals for what I personally want to accomplish this year. I’m a day to day person and I’m just focused on opening night, whether I play or not, I’ll play when they tell me and try to put my best foot forward.”
A year ago, Bussi was in the Florida Panthers training camp. After parts of four seasons in the Boston Bruins system, without playing in an NHL game, he signed with the Panthers, then two-time Cup champions. He looked forward to working with goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, a former Vezina Trophy winner with two Cup rings.
The rest of the story has been told and retold, especially during the Canes’ Cup run last season.
The Canes were putting goalie Cayden Primeau on waivers Oct. 5 and claimed Bussi off waivers that day, just in case someone took Primeau. Sure enough, Primeau was claimed by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Bussi had been reassigned to the Charlotte Checkers, the Panthers’ AHL team, and was driving to Charlotte.
“My mindset was to go to Charlotte and put my best foot forward and be ready,” he said.
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His phone rang. His life changed.
Bussi came to Raleigh and got an opportunity to play early with the Canes. He won his NHL debut. He kept on winning.
He watched as Andersen started the first 16 games of the playoffs and did not leave the bench for two months, until the third period of Game 3 in the Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights.
His first test: a penalty shot by the Knights’ Mitch Marner, who had scored a natural hat trick in the game and was looking to give Vegas a 5-0 lead in the game.
Bussi made the stop. The Canes rallied, igniting for three goals in 39 seconds and then tying the score late to take the game to overtime. A bad bounce off the end boards hit Bussi’s skate and wound up in the net for the winner for Vegas, but …
“Looking back on that series, I thought we were turning a corner regardless of the goalie change or whatever,” he said. “We were finding our game. People say the Marner save was a big moment, but I think we were rounding that corner.”
With Bussi in net, the Canes won the last three games, Bussi had a shutout in Game 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as his fiance, Mary, and family cheered him on.
Bussi lifted the Cup after the handoff from K’Andre Miller, hearing a chorus of “Bus-si! Bus-si!” from the surprisingly large contingent of Canes fans that found their way into the building.
He became a married man in July. His “day” with the Cup in August was spent in and around his hometown of Sound Beach, on Long Island, including a trip to the rink where he first learned to skate and played junior hockey.
Bussi smiled when asked if he had sometimes awakened in the morning and wondered if it was all a dream.
“There were a lot of firsts for me,” he said. “It’s a privilege to play in the NHL. It takes a lot of hard work.
“I’m going to look back 20 years from now and say ‘I can’t believe that happened.’ Whether it was my day with the Cup or getting married. A lot of things are surreal in that sense. I think I’ll always feel like that.”
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