There’s at least a partial update on the status of injured Panthers center Aleksander Barkov. Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press reports (Twitter link) that Florida has placed the center on long-term injured reserve. That means that he will miss at least the next 10 games and 24 days.
The 31-year-old missed all of last season after a training camp injury resulted in surgery being needed to repair his ACL and MCL. However, he would have been available had Florida made it to the postseason. Instead, he suited up for Finland at the World Championship in May and was quite productive, notching three goals and eight assists in ten games. That certainly provided plenty of cause for optimism heading into this season.
Unfortunately, that optimism has been derailed rather quickly. Barkov sustained what’s believed to be another lower-body injury in Florida’s second game of the season on Thursday in San Jose. While it looked like it could be a similar injury to last season, head coach Paul Maurice indicated that this injury is unrelated to last year’s. Barkov was slated to undergo an MRI on Friday and the full results are not yet known, with Reynolds relaying that the team is still unclear about the severity of the injury. However, they know enough to hold him out for basically the rest of the month at an absolute minimum.
When available, Barkov remains a high-end, two-way center. He has surpassed the point-per-game mark in each of the last five seasons that he played in while also winning the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward in three of those campaigns. He started the season anchoring a new-look top line alongside Sam Reinhart and offseason acquisition Sam Reinhart. Now, one of Sam Bennett or Anton Lundell will likely be moved up into that role for the foreseeable future.
There is undoubtedly a salary cap-related element to this placement. Florida carried a 21-player roster heading into the season: a dozen forwards, seven defensemen, and two goalies. They did that because that was all they could afford as they’re extremely tight to the Upper Limit. While veteran winger Brad Marchand is also injured, George Richards of Florida Hockey Now notes that Marchand appears to be ahead of schedule in his recovery from offseason surgery. That original timeline was the beginning of November but if he’s ahead of it, he might not miss the 10 games and 24 days after all, making him ineligible for LTIR. Needing the cap room to bring up an extra forward (and potentially more) from AHL Charlotte, they’re comfortable enough knowing Barkov will miss at least that long to put him on there.
Because this is not a season-ending placement, Florida will not be able to utilize Barkov’s full $10MM salary in their LTIR pool. Instead, they will add $3,973,228 to their pool, reflective of last season’s average salary. Still, that’s enough for them to be able to afford multiple recalls from the Checkers, with those promotions likely to come sooner rather than later given that they’re down to just 11 healthy forwards at the moment. Meanwhile, they’ll continue to hope for positive news on Barkov with the hopes that he won’t have to miss more time than these next few weeks.
Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.