Andersen preparing for Stanley Cup Final with heavy heart

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jordan Martinook broke off in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word, his eyes taking on a glassy sheen, as he thought back to Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final on Friday, to Frederik Andersen, to a game played in the fog of grief.

“The way that he played, the way that he held himself, handled himself. I’ll remember that,” Martinook said, pausing.

“Oh man,” he said, tears threatening.

He tried again.

“I’ll remember that embrace with him after the game for my entire life, and [Sebastian Aho’s] speech after the game," Martinook said. "Knowing that we all knew what he was going though ... it just speaks volumes of him. I can’t talk about it anymore. I get choked up.”

It was a moment, for Martinook, for Andersen, for the Carolina Hurricanes, that should have been filled with pure joy.

It was the franchise’s first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 20 seasons, and Andersen’s first trip in his NHL career. The Hurricanes had come so close to their dreams, to what they had worked and strived and pined for. They had vanquished the Montreal Canadiens with a 6-1 win in Game 5, had dominated all comers in the Eastern Conference.

But this last step, these last few days, as they have been readying to take on the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Final, have been as bittersweet as any they have had. They had learned on Thursday that Claude Lemieux, an NHL legend, four-time Stanley Cup champion and Andersen’s longtime agent and close friend, had died by suicide, just three days after he had carried the torch into Bell Centre ahead of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final.

So, as he readies for the Cup Final, for the most anticipated days of his career, Andersen is carrying so much more than the burden of playing in goal with a trophy and a title on the line.

So, so much more.

“I think it would be hard not to. I always dreamt about being able to talk about Cup stories with him," Andersen said. "Claude, he’s told me so many himself, right? So, of course.”

Andersen kept those stories to himself on Monday, holding them close as he met with the general media for the first time since Game 5, for the first time since Lemieux’s death. They were Lemieux’s but they were also Andersen’s, the closest the goaltender had gotten until his team takes the ice for Game 1 of the Final at Lenovo Center on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, SN, TVAS, CBC), when he will finally get the chance for his own memories to be born.

The tragedy, though, is not his alone. Many of his teammates had gotten to know Lemieux or his son, Brendan, who played in Carolina in 2023-24. Rasmus Andersson, the Golden Knights defenseman, was also a client of Lemieux’s.

“I know how proud he is of both me and Freddie,” Andersson said. “It makes it more special and harder that he’s not here to see it. I can talk for hours about him. I can’t say good enough things about him and how much he’s meant for me personally.”

Andersen and Lemieux had a particular bond, a particular connection. And so, in the days since his death, Andersen has leaned on his teammates, on the family created in Carolina's dressing room, the players he has seen through their own joys and tragedies, triumphs and disappointments, new life and death.

“It’s not easy,” Andersen said. “We go through stuff in life. Sometimes it’s impossible not to bring it into the rink. We’ve had guys going to the birth of their children -- obviously that’s on the very different end of the spectrum -- but I can’t really say enough about the way we all support each other for that stuff. Everyone goes through stuff, and really just being there for each other, it’s cool that we get to lean on each other for that.”

For Andersen, he is living what he has dreamed about.

Not all his life, because it was not all his life that he believed in his ability to get to the NHL, in his ability to make it in hockey. That didn’t take hold until around eighth grade, when his talents caught up to the idea that a kid from Herning, Denmark, might get to dream that big.

“I think you never know if you’re from a small country that had never had an NHL player before. So you’re thinking, is this even possible to make it?” Andersen recalled, noting that it only started to feel real when Frans Nielsen broke in with the New York Islanders in 2006-07, not long after Andersen had turned 17.

These moments, this chance at the Cup, at times seemed so close and so far away throughout a career that started in 2013-14 with the Anaheim Ducks, who selected him in the third round (No. 87) of the 2012 NHL Draft, spanned five disappointing seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs, during which they never made it out of the first round, and now the past five with the Hurricanes.

Andersen has played 98 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including 45 in Carolina. None of them in the Stanley Cup Final.

That will change on Tuesday.

He was asked about the road to get to this point, the twists and turns, the blood clotting issue that was found in 2023 and the knee surgery in 2024, the long stretch out of the lineup earlier this season while he ceded the net to Brandon Bussi, and his current postseason run, which has seen him go 12-1 with a 1.41 goals-against average, .931 save percentage and three shutouts.

The path has not been straight. Or easy.

“I think it’s a hard question because I haven’t tried it the other way,” he said. “I haven’t tried to be a rookie in the Cup Final. I don’t know if you get to choose your path, but I think this path has been a lot of ups and downs, and I think looking back you’re in it for the ride, too.

“You’re not just going for the end goal here. We’re living life right now and I think that’s really cool, too. We wanted to make it extra special to get to the ultimate goal, but I think the ride so far has just been -- yeah, it’s been special.”

Especially given the way he’s playing.

“I think I’m just in a good spot mentally, letting the game come to me, and I just feel like I have an answer for every situation,” he said. “Just playing in the moment, really, has been a big key for me. Not really worrying about the result, just trying to be process focused. Really something that I think when I’m at my best I’m good at honing in on.”

He has been exactly what the Hurricanes have needed, steady amidst the chaos of the playoffs, prepared for when the puck comes his way, an experienced veteran presence on an experienced veteran team.

On the ice, he has been there for them since the playoffs started, through sweeps against the Ottawa Senators in the first round and the Philadelphia Flyers in the second round, and that five-game win against the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Final.

Off the ice, over the past few days, they have done the same. They have surrounded him, supported him, tried to be there for him and there with him as he has navigated the devastation with the world watching.

“Claude and his family has been a big part of Freddie’s life for the past many years and helped him throughout his NHL career,” forward Nikolaj Ehlers said. “So, obviously this is hard for Freddie, but we’re all there for him, we’re all behind him. I think he wants to win this Cup even more now, for Claude and the Lemieux family.

“It was pretty special to see him, how good he played in that last game as well. You could see he was playing for something more than just a hockey game. That was special.”

Andersen and Lemieux were in the same building just one week ago, when Lemieux raised the torch and Andersen readied to play. They didn’t cross paths, though, with the Hurricanes back in their locker room preparing for the game as the spectacle took place on the ice.

But in the lead-up to that day, Lemieux had checked with his client, had asked his permission. To Andersen, that call said so much.

“He made sure to call me beforehand,” Andersen said. “He obviously told me that they asked him to do that. He told them that he needed to talk to me first and ask basically what I thought about it and make sure that I was OK with it. Right away, I said go for it. It’s a very big honor for a very big, storied franchise to get to do that and be a guy that they asked for that honor.

“It speaks really highly of how he thinks of his loved ones to ask that first.”

In the days since Thursday, since they learned the devastating news, the Hurricanes have done what they can to help, to support, to be there for him, each in his own way.

“I think you’re just checking in on him,” Martinook said. “I think just sending a text here or there, just making sure that he’s doing OK. You’re never going to take that pain away from somebody. You’re just trying to ease it a little bit, try to make him smile.

“Obviously, he’s going to be thinking about it, but he’s also in probably one of the best times of his life. He’s going to mourn the way he needs to mourn, but obviously this is, it’s probably the best thing that could be happening right now, that he gets to have something to distract him from that pain.”

There is pain, and there is joy.

There is the devastation of losing someone who, as Andersen put it in an earlier statement, “made an unimaginable impact on me during the more than 15 years that he was a part of my life." There is the exaltation of being four games away from etching your name on the Stanley Cup.

Andersen is living with both, twined around him through the next two weeks of the Stanley Cup Final, win or lose, and beyond. He has played through the sorrow. He will play through the sorrow, his teammates behind him every step of the way.

“We’re all here for him,” Ehlers said. “We love him. So, we’re going to keep battling for him.”