After 4 Nations ‘breakout,’ Jaccob Slavin helps Hurricanes lock down Devils

For Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin, the hardest part about the Stanley Cup playoffs so far might have been the opening game.

The Canes faced the New Jersey Devils on Easter Sunday, with a 3 p.m. start.

“That was a weird one,” Slavin said.

Slavin is a Christian man of strong faith and convictions, and to play a game on any Sunday, much less Easter Sunday, is a big ask. And a 3 p.m. starting time, the veteran D-man said, is his least favorite.

The Canes won Game 1, taking a 4-1 victory at the Lenovo Center as Slavin put in 20 minutes of ice time, assisted on a Logan Stankoven goal and did what he does best: help shut down the other team’s best forwards.

“It was OK. I mean, it was fun playing on Easter Sunday,” Slavin said this week. “I knew at the end of the day, whether we won or lost, Jesus was still victorious that day. It was a fun day.”

Game 2 had a 6 p.m. start at Lenovo Center, but the Canes won that one, too, taking a 2-0 lead in the first-round series. Game 3 in the best-of-seven matchup is Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and Game 4 will be on Sunday, again, and with another 3 p.m. start.

Carolina got off to a stumbling start Tuesday in the first period but built a game, as the players and coaches like to say, and came away with a 3-1 victory behind Frederik Andersen’s stellar goaltending.

It was Slavin’s 73rd playoff game with the Canes, allowing him to pass his coach, Rod Brind’Amour, and move into third on the team’s career list. And that should not be overlooked as just another statistic or game note.

Slavin now has been in the playoffs for seven consecutive years. He has taken on the likes of Florida’s Aleksander Barkov, the New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin and other forwards who had the skill and savvy to test you and beat you.

Slavin has the battle scars. But he also has the experience that can only be gained through the years, through the ups and downs of the playoffs, where every victory is so hard-earned and every loss can be deflating unless you have been there and know how to handle it and respond to it.

Slavin knows how to handle it. So do others on the Hurricanes. Captain Jordan Staal, forward William Carrier and defenseman Dmitry Orlov have won Stanley Cups — Staal with Pittsburgh, Orlov with the Washington Capitals and Carrier with Vegas. Staal has 149 games of playoff experience, defenseman Brent Burns 122, Orlov 94 and Carrier 83.

Thirteen Canes players have been in 40 or more playoff games. Andersen, who started and won the first two games against the Devils, now has been in 74.

Rookie forward Jackson Blake is the only one in the Canes’ lineup making his Stanley Cup playoffs debut this year.

“It’s important, just understanding the grind it takes and the mentality you have to have to play those types of games,” Slavin said. “Obviously the physicality gets notched up, so expecting that and knowing what to expect is huge, and knowing over the course of the series how that plays into it.

“We have a lot of guys on our team who have been in the playoffs, have won the Cup. It’s good to have that kind of veteran leadership.”

Slavin, 30, has been on both sides of playoff physicality. Two years ago against the Devils, he put a clean, rattling hit on Devils’ Jack Hughes along the boards that slowed down the young center. In the 2023 Eastern Conference final against the Panthers, Slavin was knocked out of Game 4 after absorbing a big hit from Sam Bennett.

Slavin is being recognized more and more as the NHL’s best defensive defenseman and opened more eyes with his effective, near-spotless play for Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off. Many observers believed he was the MVP for the U.S., which should further boost his chances of being a U.S. Olympian next year.

Slavin and Burns have been the Canes’ top defensive pair for the past three seasons and also are out together on the penalty kill. Brind’Amour said Slavin, with his active stick work and proper positioning, is the Canes’ “No. 1 soldier” on the P.K. and joins Staal in doing a lot of the “heavy lifting” defensively.

“I don’t know that we can talk anymore about Jaccob and the value he has and what he means to this group,” Brind’Amour said Tuesday. “He’s obviously special.”

With the Devils having last change at home for the next two games, New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe will do what he can in the matchups to keep his best forwards — guys like Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt — away from Slavin. But deal with him the Devils must.

Whether home or away, whether having last change or not, Slavin said the defensive goal is to “keep the hammer down.”

“We don’t really change much,” he said. “We just emphasize more and more what we do as a D corps. Making sure we’re tight, Making sure in the neutral zone there are tight gaps. Making sure of our reads, whether we’re pinching in the O zone or whatnot, and making sure those reads are correct.

“A lot of times in the regular season you can get hosed if you have a bad pinch. In the playoffs, you just can’t have those reads. It’s about making sure, mentally, we’re all there, locked in.”

Chip Alexander

The News & Observer

919-829-8945

In more than 40 years at The N&O, Chip Alexander has covered the N.C. State, UNC, Duke and East Carolina beats, and now is in his 15th season on the Carolina Hurricanes beat. Alexander, who has won numerous writing awards at the state and national level, covered the Hurricanes’ move to North Carolina in 1997 and was a part of The N&O’s coverage of the Canes’ 2006 Stanley Cup run.