Hurricanes make stunning lineup change ahead of Game 3.

Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour is definitely feeling the pressure after once again going down 2-0 in the Eastern Conference Final and his decisions ahead of tonight's Game 3 have made that crystal clear.

On Saturday, Brind'Amour announced a stunning change to his lineup when he revealed that goaltender Frederik Andersen had lost the Hurricanes net and would be replaced by Hurricanes backup goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov in Game 3. The move shows that Brind'Amour has lost faith in Andersen after what were admittedly back to back poor performances in the first two games of this series.

In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final, Andersen would give up a whopping 5 goals on just 20 shots, good for a save percentage of .750. Those are numbers you simply aren't going to win playoff games with, at least not with any degree of consistency, and Andersen repeated that performance in Game 2 when he allowed 4 goals on just 16 shots for a save percentage of .750 yet again.

That being said Kochetkov didn't do that much better when he came in to replace Anderen in Game 2, giving up 1 goal on 5 shots for a save percentage of .800 over a very small sample size.

Brind'Amour himself seemed to acknowledge that this was a surprising move today when he made it clear that he wasn't blaming Andersen for the losses, after all his teammates only put up 2 goals over those first two games, but admitted that he felt he needed to "change the vibe" for Game 3.

All that being said this move isn't entirely crazy with Kochetkov having 2 career starts against the Florida Panthers, both wins, over which he stopped a total of 70 of the 71 shots he faced. Brind'Amour is no doubt hoping that Kochetkov will be able to channel some of that same mojo in Game 3 and get his team back in the series.