NEW YORK — The building was empty Monday morning save a few workers wandering among Madison Square Garden’s massive seating bowl. The majority of the Carolina Hurricanes were still back at their hotel. Frederik Andersen had the ice and the arena almost to himself.
This has been his playoffs so far, these early solo skates with goaltending coach Paul Schonfelder. Sometimes he’s out there with the scratches and other injured players. On this morning, it was just him and Schonfelder and the swish of his pads through the chopped-up ice in his crease and the crackle of pucks ricocheting around the corners.
Forty-five minutes later, when the full team took the ice for a rare road practice in the playoffs — the Hurricanes’ first under Rod Brind’Amour without multiple off days, and read into that what you will given the way things have gone away from home — Andersen was out there with them for the first time since the knee injury he suffered more than a month ago. He left after 20 minutes, enough for his teammates to get a good look at him — “I don’t think I scored once on him today,” Sebastian Aho said — but not enough for Brind’Amour to pass any judgment on his status.
