The road trip for the Carolina Hurricanes had a strong start but has been trending down lately. The Canes have dropped their last two matches but received some good news today in practice. The biggest is that Andrei Svechnikov shed his “no contact” jersey and participated fully in practice.
Svechnikov suffered an ACL tear against the Vegas Golden Knights on March 11th of last season and underwent surgery on his knee shortly after. Missing the playoffs was a huge blow to the youngster and the Canes.
The injury was from a harmless, non-contact trip at center ice.
The 23-year-old Russian had been skating with the team in training camp and was looking strong. The possibility of opening the season with the team was in sight but stronger heads prevailed and the former first-round pick started the season on the IR.
Although Svechnikov is ready for contact, he will likely aim for a return to game action on home ice when they host the Seattle Kraken on Thursday. Tomorrow the rest of the Canes will head to Tampa Bay to face the Lightning and end this long road trip.
In other news, Sebastian Aho and Frederik Andersen both participated in practice as well.
As great as it is to see the progress of Svechnikov, the Canes struggles of late have nothing to do with putting the puck in the net. Keeping the puck out of their net is the concerning issue and Andersen can hopefully assist with that problem.
Goaltending has not been strong to start the season and Andersen’s numbers reflect that with just an .855 save percentage and 4.14 GAA. Still, the 34-year-old has two victories on the young season.