The Carolina Hurricanes took to the ice Wednesday morning for practice following their 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks.
Andrei Svechnikov was again on the ice with the team as he has been for the last few days, however, he continues to skate in a yellow, non-contact jersey, signifying the fact that he's still not yet ready to return.
"We're just waiting on him," Brind'Amour said following practice. "He just wants to feel like he's 100%. Hopefully that's tomorrow, if not I really feel it's right around the corner."
While the ball is currently in Svechnikov's court in terms of making the call to return to action, the team isn't putting any pressure on the Russian star to return until he truly feels like he's good to go for the long haul.
"You know your own body," Brind'Amour said. "He knows what he can do and what he can't do. What he can play with and what he can't play with. If there's something bothering him that's not quite right and he doesn't feel like he can go, you don't want him out there. You certainly don't want to make something worse. That's why we're cautious with all of our guys and certainly with him."
While some may reminisce on the old days when hockey players would play through just about anything, the truth of the matter is that taking this extra time for injuries to properly heal is better for the players and teams in the long run.
Missing a few regular season games is better than having a flare-up later in the season or postseason.
"It's way different now," Brind'Amour said on the current approach to injuries now from when he played. "The medical attention is so much better. From the time I came in the league to the time I got out, was a 1,000 times better and it's only gotten that much better now. I mean, the stuff that went on when I first came in, you'd go to jail for it now with the lack of care, but no one knew. It was just the way it was. Now, we're doing so much better for the players. It's definitely changed."
Svechnikov's current injury, which he described as having to do with his oblique muscles, is the third one he's dealt with this season.
The forward missed the start of the season as he recovered from ACL surgery, missed a chunk of time in December due to a bruised rib suffered at the hands of a Logan Stanley cross check and now has missed the last five games due to an oblique injury.
"It has a lot to do with him and the way he plays," Brind'Amour said in regard to Svechnikov's recent injury history. "He's always around it, being physical. He plays on the edge with his body and everything. You just run the risk of more things happening because you throw yourself around like he does. That's part of it."
Despite that elevated risk of injury, the Canes don't want to see Svechnikov change his game and see his recent string of injuries as having more to do with bad luck as opposed to anything else.
"You can talk about it, but if that's your game, that's your game," Brind'Amour said. "If that's what makes you successful as a player, you're not going to change and that's what makes him dominant. I think a lot of it is bad luck. Injuries, a lot of the time, just happen that way. Hopefully that's behind him."
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