SUNRISE - The Florida Panthers are battling a familiar enemy before their home opener, with captain Sasha Barkov sidelined 6-8 weeks and Brad Marchand nursing a new knee injury, one season after a franchise-record 540 man-games lost to injury cost the two-time Stanley Cup champions a playoff berth.
Barkov, who missed the entirety of the 2025-26 campaign, suffered a left knee injury last Thursday and will not require surgery, Florida Hockey Now reported. Marchand, who had unrelated surgery in August, went down Tuesday with what appears to be a left knee injury of his own and was being evaluated by team medical personnel.
Despite the setbacks, the Panthers went 2-0-2 on their season-opening road trip, collecting six of a possible eight points. “If you told me six of eight on a road trip, I would have signed on the dotted line,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said following a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
Tkachuk, who returned from his own injury in January of last season, said the team knows how to absorb the losses. “Unfortunately, we had to deal with that pretty much every single game last year,” he said. “When guys are banged up or out of the lineup or coming out mid-game or whatever, you just got to oversimplify it. That’s all right. Panthers hockey. Win low-scoring games and that translates to playoffs.”
Defenseman Seth Jones, who scored his first goal of the season Thursday, pushed back on any notion of a victim’s mentality. “Everyone gets hit with injuries,” Jones said. “Next man up, that’s how it’s always been. We can’t think about the past and last year. Injuries happen. I think we have an extremely deep team. Everyone plays the exact same way, and I think that’s what makes us great. Whether it’s a young guy coming in or another guy coming in from an injury, we have full confidence in our game.”
Head coach Paul Maurice said last season’s ordeal left the organization better prepared. “We know we have good depth,” Maurice said. “There is a threshold for any team, a number of injuries you just cannot survive. And we passed that pretty early last year. We have good resolve here. The tank is deep. We had a long summer off, so we’re strong.”
The Panthers host the Minnesota Wild on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise for their home opener. Minnesota leads the all-time regular season series 22-10-3 with one tie. Florida’s next road game follows Monday at the Buffalo Sabres at 1 p.m.