The injuries have forced them to dive deeper into their pool of defensemen than they would ever like to do.

Mike Reilly was Carolina’s seventh defenseman at the start of the season, a healthy scratch for the first two games before Slavin got hurt. Rookies Charles Alexis Legault and Joel Nystrom started the season with Chicago of the American Hockey League.

Nystrom will be playing his sixth straight game Tuesday after making his NHL debut on Oct. 23. Legault will also be playing his sixth NHL game; he made his debut Oct. 20.

In addition, Alexander Nikishin is also a rookie. Opening night this season was his NHL regular-season debut after the defenseman played four games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season.

“Pretty irreplaceable guy with Jaccob Slavin, ‘Key’ has been amazing for us and obviously ‘Ghost’ running our power play and was off to such a hot start,” defenseman Sean Walker said. “So definitely missing those guys, but you do what to play the same way and everyone is trying to do that to the best of our abilities. I think we’ve done a pretty good job.”

Brind’Amour agrees. He doesn’t think the defense group, especially the rookies, are culprits in why the Hurricanes have struggled recently.

“They’ve been fine,” Brind’Amour said. “They’re hanging in there and they’re learning on the fly.”

Miller will return and replace one of them soon, possibly as soon as Thursday, when the Hurricanes play the Minnesota Wild at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Hurricanes will surely welcome his return, but it still won’t take the sting away from losing out on his first chance to play his former team Tuesday, especially when Slavin and Gostisbehere are also out.

However, there’s always Nov. 26, when New York visits Carolina for the first time this season, and then again on Dec. 29. The Hurricanes will be back at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 5.

“Since I’ve been here, I don’t remember us going down on ‘D’ like this really ever,” Carolina defenseman Jalen Chatfield said. “I think maybe once or twice we had a few guys out, but we have three guys missing right now, three key players. It’s definitely different, but we’ve got great players. These guys have all been here in the summer, played great in the preseason, so we’re happy to have them.”