Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour provided some bad news regarding star defenseman Brett Presce on Wednesday.
Per NHL.com, Pesce will be out 2-4 weeks with a lower body injury that required surgery. The standout defenseman underwent surgery on Tuesday.
“Bad news there,”Brind’Amour said. “I was hoping we would say, ‘Hey, he’s a day or two away,’ but that’s definitely not the case. I can’t tell you more than that. It’s not what we had hoped.”
Following a 3-1-0 start, the Hurricanes have now dropped three straight games. Following 7-4 and 6-4 losses in Seattle and Colorado, respectively, the Hurricanes were shut out 3-0 by the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday evening.
The 28-year-old Pesce last played in the club’s Oct. 19 loss to the Kraken. Through his first five games, Pesce had averaged 19:21 of ice time per game with a goal and one assist. One of the game’s premier shutdown defensemen, Pesci also bolstered a superb 61.0 Corsi For percentage.
Carolina is shorthanded upfront as well without star forward Andrei Svechnikov, who continues to recover from surgery on a torn ACL he suffered late last season. Starting goalie Frederik Andersen has missed the last four games after taking a puck to the mask in Carolina’s Oct. 17 win over the San Jose Sharks.
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Coming off their second trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in five years, the Hurricanes entered 2023-24 as one of the top favorites to win the Stanley Cup. It’s not uncommon for a contender to struggle in the early going of a long NHL season, so it’s definitely too early for Hurricanes fans to panic.
But Pesce, Andersen and Svechnikov truly can’t return to the lineup soon enough. The last three games have shown just how different the Hurricanes are without the three stars.
