COLUMBUS, Ohio – Facing his fifth healthy scratch in six games, rookie forward Andre Burakovsky could soon head to the Washington Capitals’ American Hockey League affiliate in Hershey if he continues to sit, Coach Barry Trotz said Thursday.

“If he’s not playing in the next games here on a fairly regular basis,” Trotz said following the morning skate at Nationwide Arena, “then I’m going to have him go to Hershey for a bit and play lots of minutes.”

With the Capitals, the 19-year-old Swede hasn’t logged more than 10 minutes 39 seconds since Nov. 22, and if he again watches from the press box Thursday night, he will have played only three games this entire month. For weeks Trotz maintained that Burakovsky would remain with the Capitals, developing his centering skills – a new position the club asked him to play this summer – in the NHL.

This marked the first time Trotz connected Burakovsky, who is still tied for seventh among NHL rookies with 13 points, to an AHL assignment, and it came voluntarily after a question about how the Capitals keep Burakovsky busy when scratched.

“We’ve talked it out,” Trotz said. “I’m not hiding anything from him. I still believe he’s going to be a big piece of the organization for a long, long time and he’s going to play center ice. That’s not going to change. He’s a young guy that you’re getting to that level where it’s hard to maintain for young guys, strength-wise, game-wise, just the speed, everything. It gets ramped up. I say one percent for every game for the first 20, then it ramps up again. We just want to have him reset a little bit, then when we get him in, we’ll use him.”

The Capitals have balked at loaning Burakovsky to Team Sweden for the World Junior Championships later this month, which would also allow Burakovsky to log top-six ice time and possibly gain back some confidence after sitting for so long. But if Burakovsky went, the Capitals wouldn’t recall him until the tournament ended, so Trotz kept him around – even if he doesn’t play – to protect against injury elsewhere in the lineup.

The tournament, jointly hosted in Montreal and Toronto, begins Dec. 26, the day before the Capitals visit the Pittsburgh Penguins and close December at the Islanders on Dec. 29. They then return home for the Winter Classic against the Blackhawks on New Years’ Day, which Burakovsky would have missed as well.

“One of the things we want to guard against a little bit is we’ve got some injuries, guys coming back from injury, depth-wise,” Trotz said. “He goes to the World Junior, you really don’t have him for a couple weeks. I’ve been in this situation where we’ve loaned guys, then the first minute you loan him, and if you’re not as deep as you want to be in that position, someone goes down and now you’re down two people, in a sense. That’s one of the reasons I think he won’t be going to the World Junior.”

A strong development camp, rookie camp, training camp and preseason gave the Capitals enough confidence to bypass Hershey with Burakovsky. He scored his first NHL goal in the opener against Montreal and still leads all Washington skaters with 2.07 points per 60 minutes. If Burakovsky indeed goes to Hershey, the Capitals would be left with 12 healthy forwards, needing to fill an extra spot via promotion, trade or otherwise.