Back on track: When could injured Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen return to action?

Frederik Andersen was at practice and Sebastian Aho was not Thursday for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Max Pacioretty and Ondrej Kase were dressed and on the ice, skating and shooting the puck at Invisalign Arena, but only until practice began. Then they were gone.

The Canes currently are on a six-game road trip, yet were practicing at home. So it goes in the NHL, where scheduling can be a bit wacky at times.

After starting the trip with games against Pittsburgh and St. Louis, the Canes headed to the West Coast to face the Los Angeles Kings and then the Anaheim Ducks. Flying back, their schedule had them practicing Thursday and Friday in Raleigh before jetting off again for road games against the New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings.

“You like to get the guys home, see their families, kind of get their life back for a day or so,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Thursday.

Brind’Amour said Aho has a lower-body issue that kept him off the ice. If Aho is unable to practice Friday, Brind’Amour said, he will not play Saturday against the Islanders.

Andersen has been dealing with his own lower-body injury, one that has kept the goalie sidelined since Nov. 8, when he abruptly left practice at Invisalign. He said Thursday that a knee issue caused the sudden departure that day, and has led to his absence.

“It was something I had dealt with for a while,” Andersen said Thursday. “It was something that I’d been through before, that I knew that if I kept working it and kept putting stress on it, it wouldn’t have been good.

“It was a good time to kind of figure it out, because we still obviously have quite a bit of the season left. Had it been at the very end of the season, this might have been a different injury to play through.”

Andersen, 33, suffered an MCL tear in an April 16 road game against the Colorado Avalanche. He missed the Canes’ last six games in the 2021-22 regular season and the 14 Stanley Cup playoff games as Antti Raanta and Pyotr Kochetkov were used in net.

“This is not the same as last year but there’s some wear and tear obviously from playing goalie for close to 25 years now,” Andersen said of the injury. “You have to be careful. I’ll do what I can to get back quicker and obviously when I do get back, I don’t want to aggravate it right away again. So come back in a good way.”

Andersen played eight games before being sidelined, posting a 5-3-0 record with a 2.72 goals-against average and .891 save percentage.

Signed as a free agent to a two-year, $9 million contract in July 2021, Andersen was among the NHL’s best during the 2021-22 season. He won 24 of his first 30 games and joined Aho at the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, helping the Metropolitan Division win.

Andersen had a 35-14-3 record, 2.17 GAA and .922 save percentage in 52 games before the injury at Colorado.

Andersen won his first two starts this season, against Columbus and Seattle, allowing one goal in each game. But he gave up five goals in losses to Edmonton and the Islanders.

His last start was Nov. 6 against Toronto, when he allowed three goals on 21 shots in a 3-1 loss to the Maple Leafs at PNC Arena. Two days later, he left practice at Invisalign.

Kochetkov was recalled from the Chicago Wolves of the AHL on an emergency basis and has been used in 10 games, going 5-1-4 with a 2.44 GAA and .914 save percentage. Raanta, Kochetkov and Andersen split the work Thursday at practice.

Andersen said he is not sure when he will get back into a game — Brind’Amour said he was “not close to playing but taking the right steps.”

Another positive sign for the Canes was having Pacioretty and Kase working with former team captain Justin Williams before practice. Pacioretty continues to recover from an Achilles tendon tear in preseason and Kase is coming off a concussion — one of several in the forward’s career — suffered in the season opener.

The Canes (14-6-6) took seven of eight possible points in the first four games of the road trip, losing to the Ducks in overtime. After completing the six-game trip, the Hurricanes will play seven of eight at home.