Are the Panthers a playoff lock without Aleksander Barkov?
The Florida Panthers placed captain Aleksander Barkov on Long-Term Injured Reserve over the weekend, keeping him out of the lineup for the next 10 games, and possibly beyond.
Barkov missed the entire 2025-26 season after suffering a knee injury in training camp. One year later, he suffered another knee injury on his other leg in just his second game of 2026-27.
The Panthers missed the playoffs last season, a big reason being the number of injuries suffered to players like Barkov, Seth Jones, Brad Marchand and more. Could the team suffer the same fate if Barkov misses an extended period of time?
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by former NHL defenseman Cameron Gaunce to discuss Barkov’s injury and what that will mean for Florida’s playoff chances going forward.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The Panthers did not put a timeline on his injury, but putting him on LTIR means he’ll be out for an extended period of time.
With Barkov out, do you still consider the Panthers a lock in what should be a wildly competitive Atlantic Division?
Cameron Gaunce: Not a lock. Without Barkov, it alters their lineup drastically. Everyone gets slotted differently. When you play next to Barkov, everyone is a first-line forward. He elevates everyone around him. But now when you start moving things around … it just slots things differently.
They’re still a very good team, but a playoff lock, to me, is not there anymore. You remove a top-10 player in the league from your team, and it’s not as if it happened in the summer where you can plan around it. The expectation was that he was going to be there for the full season.
When you watched Barkov play at the World Championships for Finland, he looked like he was already back to form. That team had certain aspirations of what they were going to look like. Now things get thrown around in the blender. They’re still a good team, but I don’t see them there, anymore…
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…
