Slavin returns, but ice time remains restricted. The Hurricanes manage his workload carefully, prioritizing long-term health over immediate full deployment.
The Carolina Hurricanes got back star defenseman Jaccob Slavin in their last game, as the 31-year-old blueliner returned to the lineup for the first time in 29 games.
While his impact was immediately noticeable, it seems like the organization still isn't quite ready to ramp him all the way back up yet.
Slavin played just 14:31 in his return, which is well below his career average of 22:26 and there were a few key situations where he didn't see the ice at all as he played on PK2 and wasn't on the ice for the 6v5 situation.
The lower-body injury that sidelined Slavin is the same one that kept him out for the entire preseason and it seems to be something he's more so just dealing with for the time being.
His recovery was focused on restrengthening his body to make sure there's no risk of reaggravating his injury and it appears that the limited minutes may still be a part of on ongoing process.
"We kind of had that date circled for a while and so it was just making sure I was good, because it's a long season," Slavin said on his return. "So just wanted to make sure I was good to go and wasn't going to have any flareups."
"We obviously have to ease him back and that's hard to do too,' Brind'Amour said after Sunday's game. "It's been a long time without him and so it's nice to get him back. Hopefully he'll get up to speed here in the near future."
Brind'Amour also insinuated following that game that the decision wasn't entirely his own to keep Slavin's workload limited, stating that it was "the direction" he'd been given.
Asked on Tuesday if Slavin will continue seeing limited minutes going forward, the Hurricanes coach doubled down on it not being his decision to make.
"We're kind of getting directed on how to do that, so it's really out of my hands, to be honest with you," Brind'Amour said.
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