The defending Stanley Cup champions will face an uphill battle to kick off the 2024-25 NHL regular season. Not only will the Florida Panthers be getting every opponent’s “best shot” whenever they hit the ice as the reigning champs, but they’ll also need to do it without several key pieces of their roster.
The club announced Saturday that they would be without the services of captain Aleksander Barkov for the next 2-3 weeks due to a lower body injury. Barkov crashed hard into the boards trying to prevent an empty net goal in his team’s 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators last week and had to be helped off the ice.
While initially feared to be a broken ankle, it appears as though the 29 year old avoided serious injury, but will nevertheless require some time off skates to return to full health.
“We think two to three weeks. We think that’s probably the right window on him,” head coach Paul Maurice said. “He’s a strong healer. He’s just a big powerful man, puts a lot of torque on his joints. We’re optimistic, I think very optimistic, that he’ll play in Finland.”
Not long after, forward Matthew Tkachuk was scratched from Saturday’s contest against the Buffalo Sabres due to illness. While many assumed he would be back for Florida’s next game against Boston on Monday, the club announced shortly before puck drop that the elder Tkachuk brother would be away from the team for roughly a week.
“He’s going to be out a week,” Maurice said. “I think we’re shooting for Minnesota at home a week from tomorrow.” While the club is playing their cards close to their vest for the time being, if the 26 year old is able to return against Minnesota on Tuesday, October 22nd, he’ll have missed 5 games with the mystery ailment.
If that’s the case, then Florida will need to weather the storm without 2 of their top 3 point producers from last season in Tkachuk (88pts) and Barkov (80pts). Only forward Sam Reinhart (94pts) had more points than the two sidelines Panthers across the 2023-24 campaign.
Florida is next in action Monday against the Boston Bruins in an afternoon affair.
Photo: Doug Kerr. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.