Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said today he's very confident he'll be back soon from his knee injury.
“I'm very confident I'll be back soon,” Barkov said, standing in front of a Panthers backdrop with a red No. 16 jersey hanging on the wall behind him.
He kept it short. And no return date came attached to the clip.
Soon in injury talk works a lot like a contractor promising next week. Everybody nods, and nobody circles anything on the calendar.
The 31-year-old has dressed for 2 of Florida's 4 games so far and has yet to register a point.
His $10,000,000 cap hit is the biggest on the roster, which says plenty about how much this team leans on him.
And the offense has felt it. Florida has managed just 8 goals so far, with Sam Reinhart and Brady Tkachuk still looking for their first points.
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Aleksander Barkov just revealed how he feels about his return to the Panthers
The Panthers finally play on home ice Saturday against Minnesota. A back-to-back in Buffalo and Columbus follows on Monday and Tuesday.
Brad Marchand remains listed day-to-day with a leg injury. The 38-year-old has a goal in 2 games this season.
Matthew Tkachuk has picked up a lot of the slack with 2 goals, one of them a game-winner.
Sam Bennett and Lars Eller have chipped in 3 assists apiece, which is nice depth but not exactly a scoring engine.
Carter Verhaeghe owns the team's best rating at +5. Anton Lundell, on a $5,000,000 cap hit, has managed one assist.
Jacob Markstrom has kept the whole thing afloat with a .927 save percentage and a shutout.
That's how a team this light on goals still sits at 2-0-2 after a season-opening road trip.
Two of those games slipped away past regulation, in San Jose and Anaheim, and both felt like points left on the table.
Paul Maurice shouldn't rush his captain back for any of it. A star playing hurt in October helps nobody when the games that matter arrive in the spring.
But how long can this lineup tread water without its two biggest absences?
If soon stretches into weeks, the Vladimir Tarasenko chatter Elliotte Friedman stirred up this morning will only get louder.
Should Paul Maurice hold Aleksander Barkov out longer, even if he says he's ready?
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