Perseverance pays off for former Bruins goalie prospect Brandon Bussi, who is within a win of the Stanley Cup

The Hurricanes have a chance Sunday night to clinch the Stanley Cup, their second in franchise history, and it could happen with one-time Bruins prospect Brandon Bussi in net.

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That’s Bussi, Exhibit A in how quickly the goaltending landscape can change, even amid the intense pressure of the Cup Final, and also what an utterly useless exercise it can be for netminders — and for that matter, NHL organizations — to predict their career paths and trajectories.

Bussi, 27, picked up his second consecutive win Thursday night, lifting the Hurricanes to a 3-2 series lead over the Golden Knights. The 6-foot-4-inch former Western Michigan standout (never drafted, by the way), was poised, sharp and confident — the traits that convinced the Bruins in the spring of 2022 to sign him as a college free agent.

The signing positioned Bussi at the time to be an insurance stopper for AHL Providence, should the dynamics change in Boston around hug brothers Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, who were splitting the varsity workload. Bussi delivered as promised his rookie pro season (22-5-4 with the WannaB’s), which was the same season Ullmark won the Vezina Trophy and the Swayman-Ullmark dazzling duo went a combined 64-12-5 (don’t forget that lone win by Keith “We Hardly Knew Ye” Kinkaid.

“I’m hoping at some point to play my first NHL game,” Bussi told me one lazy day in the summer of 2023, knowing how narrow the path was for him to make it to Boston. “That’s the dream you choose.”

Then, man, things changed — and in a hurry, but none of it to Bussi’s benefit. That same guy who could be hoisting high the Cup ended up never playing a single minute for the Bruins, ultimately leaving as a free agent last July, albeit for the two-time champion Panthers and not Carolina (we’ll get to that hairpin career turn in a moment).

By the time Bussi left, Ullmark had been traded and already had spent a season in Ottawa. Ullmark’s roster spot was filled, and remains so at this hour, by ex-Senators stopper Joonas Korpisalo. Of bigger consequence, though, was that Bussi, that one-time heir apparent to be the Next Goalie Up, lost his space in the Black and Gold developmental chain to Michael DiPietro, the one-time Canucks draft pick sent east when the Bruins acquired him in the October 2022 swap for Jack Studnicka (once considered potential captain material).

None of what happened with the Bruins to Bussi is all that unusual, or to be considered a slight, particularly in the netminding business. It’s often how the vulcanized cookie crumbles in a 32-team NHL in which most teams strive to have just two guys manning their net throughout the 82-game season (84 games, starting this October). The math is never that finite, or defined, in part because of injury. For the most part, though, as Bussi learned over his three full seasons in Providence as a stopper in waiting, it’s pretty much a two-man job category.

“I’m a numbers guy,” Bussi, an accounting major his three years at WMU, told me after that first season. “I get it.”

Last summer, with the July 1 arrival of the annual free agent period, Bussi got himself a new start, signing with Florida. It was a two-way deal at league minimum ($775,000), with only a $400,000 guarantee if he spent the full season in the minors.

With Sergei Bobrovsky still holding the No. 1 varsity Sunrise job at $10 million per season, it was a fair bet Bussi would be assigned to AHL Charlotte. On the same day Bill Zito signed Bussi, the Panthers general manager also signed Daniil Tarasov, once a Blue Jackets teammate of Korpisalo, to a one-year deal fully guaranteed at $1.075 million.

Guaranteed contracts don’t always tell the whole story, but in a hard-cap league, with teams forever pushing the upper salary limit, one-way deals are usually heavy hints.

Bussi started training camp in mid-September with the Panthers and lasted all of three weeks with the organization. Fearing that an injury to projected No. 1 starter Pyotr Kochetkov could linger, a fear that turned reality, the Hurricanes on Oct. 5 filched Bussi via waivers from Florida. The NHL season just about to start, the Panthers had Bussi ticketed for Charlotte, only to have the bigger, better-known hockey team in Carolina tip the plan upside down.

Bussi is only the latest Panthers netminder to track through Sunrise and find good work, and in some cases very good money, with a different franchise. Former Boston College goalie Spencer Knight, a first-round draft pick, was paired with Bobrovsky for 1½ seasons before taking a leave of absence to tend to mental health issues. Health restored and back on the job, he was dealt to the Blackhawks for defenseman Seth Jones in 2024-25. Now Chicago’s No. 1, Knight will report to camp in September to begin the first season of a three-year deal worth $17.5 million.

Anthony Stolarz spent the 2023-24 season as Bobrovsky’s partner, got his name on the Cup, then signed as a free agent that with the Maple Leafs for four years/$15 million.

Ex-Yale goalie Alex Lyon, now with the Sabres, played 2022-23 with the Panthers, his stellar performance late in the season crucial to getting them in the playoffs. He departed in July ‘23 for a two-year deal with the Red Wings ($900,000 per season) and built on that for a two-year deal in Buffalo ($1.5 million per).

Vitek Vanecek arrived via trade on an expiring deal during the 2024-25, got his name on the Cup, then signed a one-year deal ($1.5 million) with Utah as a free agent.

Bussi, who found instant success in the Carolina net once finally making his NHL debut in mid-October, in February signed a three-year contract extension that kicks in for the start of the upcoming season. Totally payout: $5.7 million. Carolina added $10,000 at the signing as a donation to the Autism Society of North Carolina (Dylan Bussi, the goalie’s younger brother, is autistic).

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Until late Game 3 of the Cup Final, Bussi had seen no postseason action, coach Rod Brind’Amour opting to ride with veteran Frederik Andersen. With the Hurricanes down, 4-0, after two periods, Brind’Amour called on Bussi, whose brilliant relief helped Carolina stretch it to overtime before losing. In Game 4 and Game 5, back–to-back wins for the Hurricanes, Bussi surrendered a total five goals.

Bussi left the rink in Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday, Game 6 in Vegas waiting, with a Cup perhaps only another 60 minutes into his long journey.

“I don’t know if I am willing the team [to victory],” a humble Bussi said after Game 5, dismissing a reporter’s suggestion that he was carrying the Hurricanes. “We like our game right now. We work hard, stay in the moment, put your head down and grind.”

Former Bruins power forward Milan Lucic, who spent the past season playing in Scotland for the Fife Flyers in an attempt to find a route back to an NHL roster, announced via social media last Sunday that he has put away the skates for good. In a text exchange with a Globe reporter, he said he will return North America this week to begin life after playing days.

The big man left a mark: 233 goals and 353 assists and a Cup with the Bruins in 2011 in his 1,177 games. He put up a career-high 62 points in that 2010-11 season and contributed 5-7–12 to the championship run.

Upon taking the general manager’s chair in May 2015, one of Don Sweeney’s first moves was to send a 27-year-old Lucic to the Kings, setting up the hulking winger for a humongous payday (seven years/$42 million) a year later in Edmonton when ex-Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli was running the Oilers.

As of today, the lone remnants of that Lucic-to-LA deal are Boston College center Will Moore (No. 51 pick in last year’s draft) and a Round 4 pick the Bruins own in the upcoming entry draft. Andrew Peeke and Max Wanner, also with ties to the ‘15 Lucic deal, ended the season under contract with the Bruins. As of today, both are free agents.

Lucic’s final NHL games were with the Bruins at the start of 2023-24 (four games, 0-2–2). While recovering from injury during that comeback bid, he was arrested in a domestic violence case in which charges were later dropped. He soon entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program, and did not return to the ice until his brief stay with AHL Springfield early this season, prior to leaving for Scotland.

A hint where contracts could be headed: the six-year/$20 million pact signed by bottom-six forward Michael McCarron to remain with the Wild. His big payday came nearly 13 years after the Canadiens made him the No. 25 pick in the 2013 draft.

McCarron, 31, is two years younger than Bruins winger — and unrestricted free agent — Viktor Arvidsson. The Bruins would like to bring Arvidsson back, likely on a deal close to the $4 million pay rate he carried over from the Oilers in last summer’s trade.

But with his 25 goals and 54 points in 2025-26, Arvidsson could land in the $5.5 million-$6 million range, with length of term (five or six years?) determined by the degree of desperation among the bidders.

Only 69 forwards league wide, a fraction more than two per team, last season scored more goals than Arvidisson. The “Little Weasel” should be able to ferret out big bucks at the pay window.

Meanwhile, two UFAs with Bruins ties who should be budget hires and might be worth consideration for a redux run on Causeway Street are Connor Clifton and A.J. Greer.

Clifton is a right-shot defenseman and the Bruins liked the physical pop he added back there across his five seasons in Black and Gold. They need that pop now. He left for three year/$10 million with the Sabres, a deal he finished last season with the Penguins. Maybe three years/$7 million to return?

Greer, the former Boston University winger, put his name on the Cup in ‘25 with the Panthers. He’s 29, and while never a big producer (32 points this past season with Florida being his career best), and he’s also never landed a big payday ($850,000 for a high). Two or three years at, say, $1.8 million per would make him a budget hire on the fourth line.

The league lost two gentlemen in Cliff Fletcher and Gerry Meehan, who recently died only days apart, Fletcher at age 90 and Meehan at 79. The league today is full of players, coaches, and managers forever pressed for time and increasingly reluctant, if not scared, to talk to the media. Fletcher, in his GM roles with the Flames and Maple Leafs, always was approachable and up for a good gab. He put together good teams and big trades. Meehan enjoyed a solid hitch as Sabres GM (1986-93) and was instrumental in drafting Alexander Mogilny and streamlining the path to bring the talented winger from Russia to Lake Erie. “Universally liked and respected, big void,” ex-Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke wrote of Meehan on social media. As for Fletcher, Burke wrote that he “taught me to always try to make your deals bigger — so I did.” Burke, in his days running the Canucks, pulled the strings that landed twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin in the 1999 draft … Studnicka, 27, signed a two-way deal as a free agent with Florida last July and was in training camp last September with Bussi. Unlike Bussi, Studnicka, who played 19 games with the Panthers, did not get claimed via waivers when demoted to Charlotte. He finished 12-18–30 in his 41 games with the AHL club. He is a free agent again … A true honor here last Tuesday to be on the invite list at the Garden, joining in the celebration of “Rocket” Richard Johnson, who is easing back on day-to-day duties on Causeway Street after 40-plus years as The Sports Museum’s talented curator. Johnson will continue in a reduced role, though I suspect that will be akin to having asked Ted Williams to lay off a fat fastball served right down Broadway. Johnson loved his life’s work and the passion poured back his way in buckets during the two-hour fete. He has been an unremitting friend to Boston media, particularly the print reporters often marginalized in these last 30 years of the internet era. Johnson never has forgotten a thing, particularly his friends … Former Bruins goalie prospect John Grahame won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning (2004 with current Golden Knights coach John Tortorella then the bench boss in Tampa Bay) less than 18 months after he was dealt away by GM Mike O’Connell in January 2003 for a Round 4 draft pick. Grahame, now 50, watched from the bench in the spring of ‘04 as the Bulin Wall, Nikolai Khabibulin, carried the Lightning to the Cup … Buyouts begin this week, no later than 48 hours after the final Cup game (a Game 7 would be Wednesday in Raleigh). The standard discount allows clubs to trim one-third of the total dollars off a player’s deal and pay the remaining value over twice the contract’s remaining term (example: a player with for years to go would be paid across eight years, at 67 cents on the dollar). In theory, the salary cap bumping up to $104 million next season will have clubs pondering buyouts more seriously, with GMs thinking club owners (their bosses) won’t scrutinize their mistakes as critically. All buyouts must be complete by June 30, in the hours leading up to July 1 free agency … The Hockey Hall of Fame next Monday, June 22, will reveal its Class of 2026 inductees (for formal induction Nov. 9 in the Toronto shrine). Patrice Bergeron, eligible for the first time, is the all-time shoo-in. If “Bergy” has to wait, just melt the ice, turn off the Zamboni, and turn the rink into a bingo hall.

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