RALEIGH, N.C. — Jaccob Slavin of the Hurricanes had put in 27 minutes of playing time — almost 12 of it on the penalty kill — in a 4-2 win Thursday over the Florida Panthers. The defenseman had every reason to be exhausted Friday.
But Slavin, as reliable as any player Canes coach Rod Brind'Amour has in his lineup, patiently sat through an interview with the News & Observer, discussing a variety of subjects, from hockey to social injustice to the number of letters in his name.
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— Chip Alexander: How does a defenseman feel after playing 27 minutes in a game and spending almost 12 killing penalties?
— Jaccob Slavin: "Typically pretty bad. That game was kind of a weird night because of all the penalty kill time but our kill was doing really well and there was a lot of up-ice pressure, letting our forwards do the work in the O zone. Me and (Brett) Pesce were standing in the neutral zone for a little bit of that time. No, I felt fine after the game."
— CA: There was a tweet recently from the NHL Players Association about you saying your pet peeve was that your wife Kylie likes to draw pictures on your face? What kind of pictures?
— JS: "No, no, she doesn't draw on my face the way the NHLPA made that look. But we'll be sitting in church or at the kitchen table or wherever and she has a pen she'll try to mark on my hand or something. I don't know why it is but I've never liked marks on my hand or my arms. She knows that gets under my skin and she tries to exploit that."
— CA: What's the best thing about being a father?
— JS: "That's a loaded question right there but it's the joy you get out of it, the love you have for your child. Obviously in my case it's (daughter) Emersyn. It's a love only a father can really speak to. It's super fun. It's fulfilling to be able to love someone like that. Even the love you have for a wife is different from the love you have for a child. It's unbelievable. You watch them grow, you watch them learn, you watch them get hurt and come running to you, right, and needing comfort. It's just awesome. How much I love Emersyn is beyond measure and then you look at the love God has for us and it's even more so."
— CA: One day when she's older she may come to you and ask you to explain all that happened in 2020, with the pandemic and social injustice issues. What will you tell her?
— JS: "(smiles) I'm going to try to never remind her of it again. No, it's the world that we live in. We live in a broken world. It was a year of a lot of different stuff and a year that hopefully our world learns from eventually, and our culture and society learn from and we grow from it. But hopefully it's a year we can look back on and say that was kind of a turning point for our people."
— CA: You're a man of very strong faith and the Canes had a game on Easter Sunday. Did you have a problem with that?
— JS: "It came to my mind. But a hockey game, it's part of the job. But it didn't stop me from celebrating what that day meant and Jesus rising from the dead. It didn't stop me from having that celebration and enjoying it and praising God for it. Obviously I would have preferred to be able to be at home and go to church and celebrate that way, but I found a different way to celebrate. It was fine."
— CA: If a young hockey player comes to you and asks how does a fourth-round draft pick from Colorado College make it to the NHL, what would you fell him?
— JS: "Oh, I'm always the worst at this question. I've had a lot of people come to me and ask me for advice or what's your diet like or things like that. I'm like I'm the worst person to ask about that because my diet is not good. Obviously the work ethic you need to have needs to be there. You've got to want to get better. But the biggest thing for me is to stay humble and work hard and put the rest in God's hands."
— CA: Do you have any game-day rituals or superstitions?
— JS: "I would say I have my routine but not necessarily superstitions. I know what makes my body feel good and makes me prepared to play the game but if one thing goes wrong it's not like I'm a mental wreck going out for the faceoff."
— CA: The "Fill the Stadium" Compassion International initiative has raised millions of dollars for underprivileged children and their families living in extreme poverty and affected by the pandemic. Why did you feel it was important to be involved?
— JS: "It's important to me and Kylie also is involved with it. The resources God has given us and the platform He has given us to reach those in need is definitely one of the most important things in our life. To be able to be a part of this initiative and be able to help these children in crisis has been huge. Through COVID and 2020 they were impacted as much as we were but their basic necessities were not there anymore. To be able to have food and drinking water for them was important to Kylie and me, and it was one of those things where you want to be involved with it and glorify God at the same time and give these kids hope."
— CA: On your Instagram page you wrote: "My wife and I hated that it took having a Black daughter to open our eyes to racism and injustices." What did you mean by that?
— JS: "It's not like it was, 'Oh, wow, racism never existed before Emersyn came into our life.' It's like with anything else in life, and I was talking to Kylie about this the other day, if we all of a sudden had a child with Down Syndrome we would obviously know more about the ins and outs about Down Syndrome. For us, we knew that racism existed, we knew that it was there. But once we were living more in that world, more so, with Emersyn coming into our life, it was truly trying to understand her culture and where she came from, and what she was going to have to go through in life. We didn't want to go into it naive. We wanted to be prepared, we wanted to give her the best chance as a child. So once we really got into her world, then we realized all the ins and outs of racism that still exist and all the biases that exist still. The people that we talk to in our lives who are a BIPOC community, we talk to them about things. We became more educated on it and in becoming more educated I can say it truly opened our eyes to it because we weren't fully aware of what all went on."
— CA: A lot of people say the tweet of Emersyn getting excited about your indoor goal celebration in front of the TV, with all of her giggles. Does she still get a big kick out of your cellys?
— JS: "We have fun. She's a little bit older now and there will be times when random things make her funny. That night with that video is one of those nights where she got a big kick out of a celly. Now sometimes if we're playing and I celly in a different way she'll say, 'No, no Daddy, like this' and she'll show me how to celebrate. She can definitely light up a room."
— CA: Did she critique your celly after your recent goal against Nashville?
— JS: "She did not, actually. I told Kylie if I score this year I'm going to have to drop my stick and give it the ol' Emersyn celebration but we haven't seen too many pucks go in the back of the net for that to happen."
— CA: Quick hockey question, why do you wear No. 74?
— JS: "That's the number I was given when I came to the team."
— CA: And what's the story about the first names in your family siblings and number of letters?
— JS: "Justin, Jordan, Jaccob, Josiah, Jeremiah. They're all Js and the first four have six letters. That's what Grandma wanted. Then she passed away and Jeremiah got more than six. But we kept the J's going."
— CA: Every coach has their own coaching style. What's Rod Brind'Amour's best attribute as a coach?
— JS: "One thing I like about it personally is just how much he cares about us as people. You see it in the way he treats us, the way he talks to us, the way he goes about individual relationships on the team. He truly cares about each and every one of us. When you have that care there, you have more respect for him as a coach. That's one of the things I like the most, just his care for people."
— CA: You have a team that will be in the playoffs for a third straight year. What did you guys learn from the last couple of years that you can apply this year?
— JS: "Just that every game counts. Whether it's Game 1 of the series, Game 7 of the series, you can't let your foot off the gas. We have a good squad this year, have all the pieces in place. We've just got to be ready to go from the start of the playoffs and like Rod always talks about, just making sure we have that consistency there and we're ready for the task."
