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Andersen vs. Hart: Breaking down the 2026 Stanley Cup Final goaltending battle

Mike Gould
Mike Gould
Jun 2, 2026, 12:18 EDT
Frederik Andersen and Carter Hart (Imagn Images)

The Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes are both four games away from winning their second-ever Stanley Cup championship.

It’s all come down to this: the Pacific and Metropolitan Division champions facing off in a winner-take-all battle for eternal glory. Both teams wasted little time vanquishing their opponents in the Conference Finals, with Carolina beating the Montreal Canadiens in five games and Vegas sweeping the Colorado Avalanche in four. Now, the final series is about to begin, with Game 1 taking place in Carolina on Tuesday night.

While both teams have an array of stars and impressive depth at the defensive and forward positions, they’ve also won plenty of games on the backs of their respective goaltenders. Of course, there’s nothing quite like the spotlight of the Stanley Cup Final, and the goaltenders on both sides will have to deal with pressure unlike anything they’ve faced in their playing careers to date.

With the start of hockey’s biggest championship series just hours away, here’s a closer look at how the goaltending stacks up between Carolina and Vegas:

Carolina Hurricanes

Frederik Andersen: 35 GP, 16-14-5, .874 SV%, 3.92 5v5 GSAx (13 GP, 12-1, .931 SV%, 11.25 GSAx)
Brandon Bussi: 39 GP, 31-6-2, .893 SV%, 8.86 5v5 GSAx
Pyotr Kochetkov: 9 GP, 6-2-0, .899 SV%, -0.58 5v5 GSAx

Based on his performance with the Hurricanes during the 2025-26 regular season, few would’ve expected Freddy Andersen to be the guy to backstop this team to the Stanley Cup Final. But here we are, with just 13 playoff games in the books, and the 36-year-old Dane has backstopped the ‘Canes to a 12-1 record with three shutouts and a .931 save percentage while playing in every second of each game thus far.

Despite largely staying healthy after multiple injury-plagued years, Andersen’s regular season was still very disappointing by his standards. He lost nine consecutive games between Nov. 11 and Jan. 3, causing Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour to lean far more heavily upon backup Brandon Bussi down the stretch. Andersen ultimately finished with a 16-14-5 record and an .874 save percentage in 35 games during the regular season, a far cry from Bussi’s 31-6-2 record and .895 save percentage.

But Brind’Amour chose to go with Andersen for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Ottawa Senators, a series in which he ultimately allowed just five goals in a four-game sweep. He matched that result, right down to yet another Game 1 shutout, in a second sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers in Round 2, before being left largely to his own devices as the Hurricanes beat the Canadiens in five games in the East final.

Andersen is one of the most established goaltenders in the league. His 98 playoff games rank third among all active NHL goalies, behind only Andrei Vasilevskiy (127) and Sergei Bobrovsky (117), and way ahead of fourth-ranked Jake Oettinger (71). But this is easily the most successful run of his career to date, particularly compared to all the one-and-done springs he had to endure during his tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

A two-time William M. Jennings Trophy winner and NHL All-Star Game participant, Andersen is large (6-foot-4, 229 pounds) and imposing between the pipes. When he gets hot, as he certainly is right now, he can be all but impossible to beat. He’s allowed two goals or fewer in 12 of Carolina’s 13 playoff games thus far, a distribution that exactly matches his win-loss record. If the Hurricanes can limit Vegas’s shot output as they did with Montreal, Andersen should have no problem guiding his club to its second championship.

Vegas Golden Knights

Carter Hart: 18 GP, 11-3-3, .891 SV%, -8.12 5v5 GSAx (16 GP, 12-4, .924 SV%, 5.32 5v5 GSAx)
Akira Schmid: 34 GP, 16-10-6, .893 SV%, 11.36 5v5 GSAx
Adin Hill: 27 GP, 10-9-6, .870 SV%, -10.73 5v5 GSAx
Carl Lindbom: 8 GP, 2-4-2, .873 SV%, -2.81 5v5 GSAx

Like Andersen, Carter Hart has played in every single second of his team’s games in these playoffs. He also hasn’t had a whole lot to do at times, most notably facing just 12 shots (but still allowing four goals) in Game 3 of Vegas’s Round 1 series against the Utah Mammoth. But after an up-and-down start to his first postseason experience with Vegas, Hart has gotten hot at the right time, winning each of his last six games — including four against the Avalanche in one of the most shocking sweeps in recent NHL history.

But first, it is impossible to extricate Hart’s current success from his role in one of the most widely publicized scandals to hit the hockey world in decades. In 2024, the Sherwood Park product was charged with one count of sexual assault in relation to his role in an alleged incident during a Hockey Canada gala at a London, Ontario hotel in 2018. The following year, the Ontario Superior Court acquitted Hart and his four co-defendants, but his return to the NHL following the highly contentious trial has been subject to intense scrutiny from fans and media alike. For their part, the Golden Knights have not eased tensions with their heavy-handed attempts to control outside media coverage of Hart since he signed with the team in October.

Amidst all this controversy, Hart managed a largely pedestrian .891 save percentage in 18 games with Vegas in the regular season, although his 11-3-3 record far surpassed those of Akira Schmid and a hobbled Adin Hill. And when the Golden Knights pulled the trigger on its surprise late-season coaching change from Bruce Cassidy to John Tortorella, they immediately went on a long winning streak with Hart in goal, stringing together a half-dozen successful games in a row to clinch the Pacific Division for the fifth time in nine seasons; Hart went 6-0-0 with a .930 save percentage in those final six games of the 2025-26 regular season.

Prior to this year, Hart only had one spring’s worth of Stanley Cup Playoff experience to draw upon. He appeared in 14 games with the Flyers in the 2020 playoff bubble, going 9-5 with a .926 save percentage as Philadelphia dispatched the Canadiens before falling in seven games to the New York Islanders. This time around, Hart is 12-4 with a .924 save percentage, with that record encompassing his perfect 4-0 run and .944 save percentage against Colorado in the Western Conference final.

The Golden Knights have gotten as far as they have in this year’s playoffs on the backs of multiple players riding career-best hot streaks. Brett Howden and Pavel Dorofeyev are tied for the team lead with 10 goals apiece through 16 games, while Mitch Marner has pushed himself into legitimate Conn Smythe Trophy consideration with a league-leading 21 points in the postseason. Hart is also in the midst of one of the most successful stretches of his playing career, and while it won’t stop the fiery debate that rages whenever Hart steps onto the ice, it could very well still spark Vegas to its second championship in four seasons.

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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