Is Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin the best in the NHL? Canes’ coach thinks so

The second round, and perhaps the entire postseason for the Carolina Hurricanes, turned on a single play in Game 4, with the Game 3 debacle all too fresh in everyone’s memory.

Down 1-0 to the New Jersey Devils, the game and series starting to slip away, Jaccob Slavin picked Michael McLeod’s pocket at center ice and sent the puck going the other way. Seconds later, it was in the Devils’ net, the first of nine goals the Hurricanes scored over the next five periods and change.

That delicate stick play, the kind at which Slavin excels and is rarely given proper credit, changed everything. In an instant, he stole all of the Devils’ momentum and put the Hurricanes in a position to capitalize. It was Slavin at his best, and all anyone will remember is Martin Necas flying toward the net to deflect Jordan Martinook’s pass past Vitek Vanecek.

He had another one of those in overtime in Game 5, deftly stealing the puck from Jack Hughes and setting up a Martinook chance, and maybe if that one had gone in, Slavin might finally have gotten the recognition he deserved for his single-handed dominance of the series. The Devils scored one goal against Slavin in five games. The Hurricanes scored 13 with him on the ice.

“We scored a lot of goals and I just happened to be on the ice for some of those, right?” Slavin said. “But not getting scored on is what I take pride in.”

Or, as Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour put it: “Unreal.”

A Conn Smythe longshot

The oddsmakers at DraftKings have installed Sebastian Aho (6-to-1), Frederik Andersen (9-1), Necas (18-1) and Brent Burns and Martinook (both 22-1) as the most likely candidates among the Hurricanes to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP should the Hurricanes continue to advance, but the smart money is somewhere else.

And as good as Jordan Staal (30-1) has been, even he hasn’t had the impact that Slavin has.

Slavin’s odds — 50-to-1 at DraftKings — are as lopsided as his NHL-best plus/minus of plus-14 in the postseason. That’s a statistic of limited utility, to be sure, heavily influenced by situations and linemates and matchups, but in this case it reflects reality.

Because Slavin doesn’t produce a ton of points or deliver big open-ice hits, he doesn’t get the same attention across the league as some of his peers. This year’s Norris Trophy is likely to go to Erik Karlsson of the San Jose Sharks, whose explosive offense obscures the fact he’s been a disaster in his own end — truly a Sandis Ozolinsh scenario. Burns, given the jolt he gave Carolina’s power play, was arguably the better candidate on Slavin’s own team over the course of the regular season.

But when it comes to the defensive side of the game, especially in this postseason, nobody’s been better than Slavin, and it’s the kind of bright spotlight that can change perceptions forever going forward.

“For him, a lot of times, it’s simple,” Aho said. “His positioning, his skating ability, reading the game, working with his partner, all of that gives him the edge to break the puck out or not let them gain our blue line, all that stuff. He’s just really efficient, how he plays.”

Slavin’s work in tight quarters with his stick has always been elite, and it has always been the case that when two men go into the corner, Slavin will emerge with the puck, and he’s been a more physical player in this postseason than at any point in his career. It may have been his heavy hit on Hughes that made the Devils’ phenom a question mark for Game 5.

“He might be one of the best defensemen ever to play that position the way he plays it,” Brind’Amour said. “Everyone raises their eyes at me, but they don’t watch it every night. Defending, I haven’t seen anyone better.”

A new challenge

The numbers were less striking in the first round against the New York Islanders — a six-five split in Slavin’s favor, including one Islanders power-play goal — but don’t fully capture Slavin’s impact on the series. Better: Islanders stars Bo Horvat and Mat Barzal combined for a total of four points in the five games, none with Slavin on the ice at even strength. In terms of scoring chances, no Hurricanes player had a better margin five-on-five than Slavin, per Natural Stat Trick.

And while it took a team effort to limit Jack Hughes and Timo Meier and Nico Hischier to a combined 13 points in the second round — Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei essentially fought Hughes and Meier to a draw five-on-five, while Slavin and Burns took Hischier and Jesper Bratt almost entirely out of the series — Slavin was nearly perfect on the scoresheet

The Hurricanes will need that again against the Florida Panthers, with Matthew Tkachuk fifth in playoff scoring, the only player whose even-strength goal-differential compares to Slavin’s, and among four Florida players with five or more goals. It’s a different challenge, but the goal remains the same.

“They’re not someone who just wants to play on the perimeter,” Slavin said. “They want to get into the dirty areas and be grinding in front of the net. Some of those other guys are perimeter guys, they’re going to try to beat you with speed and skill. These guys will take you to the net. It just changes the dynamic. I’m not saying one way is better than the other.”

The Slavin-Burns pairing has been nothing short of smothering, and while Burns would be a sentimental Conn Smythe selection if the Hurricanes won the Cup — a wait of 1,333 regular-season games tends to sway voters — Slavin has been the odds-on best player on the ice, night after night after night.

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