There’s at least a partial update on the condition of injured Panthers center Alexander Barkov. Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press reports (Twitter link) that Florida has placed the center on long-term injured reserve. That means he will miss at least the next 10 games and 24 days.
The 31-year-old missed all of last season after an injury in training camp required surgery to repair his ACL and MCL. However, he would have been available if Florida had made the playoffs. Instead, he represented Finland at the World Championship in May and was very productive, scoring three goals and eight assists in ten matches. This has certainly provided plenty of reasons to be optimistic heading into this season.
Unfortunately, this optimism was derailed quite quickly. Barkov suffered what is believed to be another lower-body injury during Florida’s second game of the season Thursday in San Jose. Although it appears to be a similar injury to last season, head coach Paul Maurice indicated that this injury is not related to last year’s. Barkov was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Friday and the full results are not yet in, with Reynolds reporting that the team is still unclear on the severity of the injury. However, they know enough to pretty much hold him back the rest of the month at the absolute minimum.
When available, Barkov remains a high-end two-way center. He has topped the points-per-game mark in each of the last five seasons in which he has played while winning the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward in three of those campaigns. He started the season by anchoring a new high-end line alongside Sam Reinhart and off-season acquisition Sam Reinhart. Now one of Sam Bennett Or Anton Lundell will likely be promoted to this role for the foreseeable future.
There is undoubtedly a salary cap element to this placement. Florida had a team of 21 players before the start of the season: a dozen forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders. They did it because it was all they could afford, as they are extremely tight on the upper limit. While he was a 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 schedule was early November, but if he’s early, he might not miss all 10 games and 24 days after all, making him ineligible for LTIR. Needing enough cap space to bring in an additional (and potentially more) forward from AHL Charlotte, they’re comfortable enough knowing Barkov will miss at least that long to put him there.
Because this is not an end-of-season placement, Florida will not be able to use Barkov’s entire $10 million salary in its LTIR pool. Instead, they will add $3,973,228 to their pool, which reflects last season’s average salary. Still, that’s enough for them to be able to afford several Checkers call-ups, with those promotions likely coming sooner rather than later given there are only 11 healthy forwards left at the moment. In the meantime, they will continue to hope for positive news on Barkov in hopes that he won’t miss more time than the next few weeks.
Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.
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