{"id":417571,"date":"2026-10-03T08:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417571\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T08:36:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:36:30","slug":"how-the-florida-panthers-can-get-by-without-sasha-barkov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/417571\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Florida Panthers Can Get By without Sasha Barkov"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Panthers could be without Sasha Barkov at least for the remainder of this four-game road trip after their captain appeared to sustain some sort of injury to his left leg on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Barkov, who missed all of last season after needing reconstructive surgery on his right knee, is scheduled to have an MRI sometime Friday in southern California<\/a> where the team is camped out for the next few days.<\/p>\n

If Barkov\u2019s injury is not serious \u2014 he has left games after hits to either of his knees in the past and returned a few weeks later \u2014 the Panthers should be OK. <\/p>\n

The lack of salary cap space, however, makes this a difficult situation to navigate. <\/p>\n

Florida is right up against the NHL\u2019s $104 million salary cap<\/a> and are currently only carrying 21 players instead of the 23-man max.<\/p>\n

The only spare player on the roster is defenseman Uvis Balinskis who was forced into action Thursday when Gus Forsling was a late scratch.<\/p>\n

If Barkov is only going to be out short-term, the Panthers will need to do something. <\/p>\n

Balinskis grew up playing as a forward before being switched to defense as a teenager. Paul Maurice has used Balinskis as a fourth-line forward in the past. <\/p>\n

While that is not optimal, it is a Band-Aid for the time being. <\/p>\n

If Barkov were to miss, say, a month to six weeks, the Panthers could place him on LTIR and recover about $4 million of his cap hit. That would allow Florida to at least bring up some reinforcements (a center would be likely) from AHL Charlotte.<\/p>\n

To be eligible for LTIR without it being a season-ending designation \u2014 in that case, a player could not return at all, including the playoffs but the team gets all of their cap space back \u2014 a player would have to miss 10 games and 24 days. <\/p>\n

Florida could also designate Brad Marchand for LTIR and create some cap space if his timeline remains around Nov. 1. <\/p>\n

Wednesday, Maurice said Marchand looked to be ahead of schedule<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Before training camp, however, he said Marchand would miss the entire month of October regardless of how good he may look leading up to that.<\/p>\n

As far as how the lineup could look, Florida needs a center. <\/p>\n

Either Anton Lundell or Sam Bennett could slide up into Barkov\u2019s spot between Sam Reinhart and Brady Tkachuk, although seasoned-veteran Lars Eller saw some time there Thursday after Barkov left with an injury. <\/p>\n

Maurice could also change up the lines with Barkov out, putting the Tkachuk Brothers together with Bennett; Lundell has had success playing with Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe in the past. <\/p>\n

Eller could move up to the third line, or remain on the fourth if Florida made a cap-saving move and brought up a player such as Cole Reinhardt or Cole Schwindt from Charlotte. <\/p>\n

Either one of those players could slide into a center role on the third or fourth line. <\/p>\n

ON DECK: GAME No. 3<\/p>\n

FLORIDA PANTHERS at ANAHEIM DUCKS<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tGeorge Richards is the publisher of Florida Hockey Now and has been the beat writer covering the NHL Florida … More about George Richards, FHN Publisher<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers could be without Sasha Barkov at least for the remainder of this four-game road trip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133787,25443,165252,28,30,29,16995,99289,21606],"class_list":["post-417571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-aleksander-sasha-barkov","tag-anton-lundell","tag-barkov-injury","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-panthers","tag-sam-bennett","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}