The NHL has taken another huge step towards its official return with the commencement of Phase 3 of its Return-to-Play plan, meaning that training camps around the league have started to get players back into game form. The Hurricanes are one of those teams returning and today’s skate featured most of the regular season’s cast.
One of those players was defenseman Dougie Hamilton who was on a Norris caliber pace with 14 goals and 40 points through 47 games before sustaining a leg injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the season.
Hamilton talked to the media on Zoom after Monday’s practice to talk about his general feelings towards the return-to-play, his injury rehab and more.
On how he feels now returning from injury: I feel good. It’s been a long time so just trying to keep improving everything and keep getting better over the next few weeks. Hopefully I’ll feel better and better as we go, but I feel pretty good.
On any lingering pain or problems: There’s some stuff that’s still not perfect, but I feel good. It’s getting better and better as I go and I’m just trying to keep on working on stuff off the ice as well. Hopefully that will help me in the next couple of weeks.
On how his rehab went: I got to keep my same routine and I was going to physio away from the team at a clinic, which the people were amazing at. I think they helped me so much through the injury and stuff and being positive with me. When you’re alone all the time it’s nice to get out of the house and go and spend like five hours a day there. I had my one hour slot, but they wouldn’t kick me out. They were still open during all the closings so I was able to keep doing that and transition to working out with Billy and skating after that.
On how he feels getting a shot to play this season after the injury: Obviously you don’t want to get injured but I guess there’s a silver lining in everything. You just think about what’s ahead of you and I’m just focused on now, getting better and getting ready for the playoffs.
On new faces among the defense: It’s pretty impressive. We had eight big D out there today, eight legit NHL D. Obviously, that’s pretty nice to have. Lot of good players. Just looking at our forward lines as well we got a good team. So hopefully we can do something special here.
On how he feels about the Return-to-Play: You don’t really think about it. We’re looking out for one another. I think you have to be responsible and try not to get sick and put ourselves or our teammates at a disadvantage. Other than that, I think it’s exciting to play hockey again. It’ll be different for sure. Nobody’s experienced it before. Just being locked down at the hotel and stuff. It’s definitely going to be different with no fans, playing in August with the heat and all that, but it’s exciting and something new.
On having to tighten circles: It’s going to be pretty hard to play if you miss two weeks at this point. Hopefully we all stay safe, but if someone gets it or if it goes around it’s going to put us behind pretty hard or for any guys around the league. Just trying to be as responsible as we can. I mean you can do everything right and still get it, so we’ll see what happens but just trying to do your best.”
On if he has taken the time to discuss contract extension: I had a lot of time to think over the last six months and I thought about a lot of things but there’s nothing really right now. There’s too much going on and, for me, I just want to focus on rehab and getting back to feeling good and winning hockey games. It’s exciting right now for sure and we can figure out all of those things later.
On if it feels like starting the season over? I think it’s pretty fresh for everyone so I don’t know. It’s new. It’ll be like preseason. Every year, some teams come out hot and some are slower. It’s not like a normal season where you are going straight into the playoffs and you’re in rhythm, where the power play and penalty kills are in a rhythm. It’s all different at this point. For us it’s just about getting back to how we want to play right away. We’re already working on it watching video and doing drills to refresh our systems.