The goaltending situation in Charlotte heading into the 2025-26 season had a much different look than how the campaign ended.
The Panthers added to their goalie platoon over the summer by signing Brandon Bussi - a 27-year-old AHL standout. With Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov between the pipes for Florida, Bussi appeared destined to be the veteran backstop in Charlotte alongside 24-year-old Cooper Black, who looked to take another step forward in his development.
As is often the case in the world of pro hockey though, the plan changed.
En route to the Queen City six days before the start of the Checkers’ season, Bussi was claimed off waivers by Carolina - where he would enjoy a breakout campaign for the Canes.
At that point, the crease became Black’s.
“Some luck there is involved,” said Black. “I think it was supposed to be me and Bussi for the season and then he goes up there and has a heck of a year. Deserves it all, he works his tail off for sure.”
With a new-look goalie group, the Checkers would tap Black to start each of the first eight games of the season - quite the jump from last season, in which he only played in back-to-back games on two occasions - and either he or rookie Kirill Gerasimyuk would start 35 of the team’s first 41 games.
The Checkers would eventually add a veteran presence in Louis Domingue, but even by that point it was clear that the goal belonged to Black, who backstopped Charlotte to one of its best defensive seasons in years.
“I think we ended up fourth in goals against in the whole league with two rookie goaltenders,” said Kinnear. “That’s a tribute to the year Blacky had, but also Kirill and the development they had over the course of time.”
Pressed into action, Black would ultimately log 42 games for the Checkers. He finished as the eight-most used goaltender in the league and ranked fourth in the AHL with 25 wins.
“It was a huge learning year, getting the reins a little bit earlier than probably the team planned on,” said Black. “But I feel like overall it was a good year and I learned a ton.”
“Coop had a great year,” said defenseman Mike Benning. “He’s massive, he takes up a lot of the net and he’s a good goalie, he stops the puck.”
Black praises the work he put in with Checkers goalie coach Sylvain Rodrigue throughout the year for helping him through his newfound role.
“He’s unbelievable,” said Black of Rodrigue. “I don’t think there’s any goalie coach in the league that’s better. He’s an unbelievable coach and getting to learn from him and work with him, it’s amazing. I just feel lucky to have a guy like him coaching me every day.”
The regular season wrapped up and the Checkers continued to ride Black between the pipes as they began what would hopefully be another deep playoff run. That wouldn’t happen, though, as a first-round defeat sent Charlotte home much earlier than it had planned.
“I don’t even know how to describe it, it felt like it wasn’t real,” said Black of the playoff exit. “For us - or maybe for me - this year hurt more than last year because last year we took a stab at it. Even though we didn’t win the whole thing we still used the opportunity to our fullest and gave it a good run. This year I think everyone feels the same way, it’s just such a disappointing end because, honestly, I think our team is just as good if not better this year. It’s definitely hard.”
Along with the rest of his teammates, Black took the loss hard, and while the disappointment will hang around for some time, there’s a building block there.
“You need to feel those type of games,” said Kinnear. “A coach can talk about how physically and mentally tough it is to win, but coaches’ words don’t matter, you have to feel it. I think Cooper felt it. He’ll develop moving forward in those type of games to have that mental and physical toughness. We have a long way to go with that but he felt it.”
“For any young guy it’s going to be consistency,” said Black. “I think that I had good runs, I had bad runs, it’s all a part of the learning process. Pro hockey is hard. It’s 72 games in a year. For me, coming from last year to this year, we kind of talked about me skipping over a step, it was definitely a challenge. Going into next year it’s going to be consistency.”
Seeing the pitfalls that can come with a best-of-three series has also given Black fuel for the fire heading into next season.
“Knocking off one goal every two games, because at the end of the day that’s all it is,” he said. “You make one more save every game or two games, maybe that’s the difference of those six points [that the Checkers missed a first-round bye by].”
His road map might have changed, but Black was up to the task, and now he’s ready to keep going.
“I think Coop is going to have great success throughout his whole career,” said Benning. “I was glad to be playing in front of him this year and hopefully more years to come. He’s a beast and it was good to see him take on that role.”
“It’s going to help that much more that I’ve got more games experience and played in a lot more situations,” said Black. “I know that next year I’ll be ready to come in and do some damage with the team.”
