MIAMI — The Florida Panthers’ climb to the NHL’s first Stanley Cup three-peat in more than 40 years just got higher, steeper. The team lost its guide and sherpa on Friday, the player the others follow.

There is no understating the size and weight of the Panthers losing team captain Aleksander Barkov to knee surgery expected to be season ending — a massive blow that reverberates across hockey.

“I know the idea is next man up,” as Panthers coach Paul Maurice put it Friday. “There isn’t a next man to fill Barky’s skates.”

Barkov crumpled to the ice during the team’s first full preseason practice after minor contact Thursday. It didn’t seem serious ... until it did.

Florida already knew it would be without scoring star Matthew Tkachuk after his offseason surgery to fix a torn adductor muscle. He’ll miss up to the first third of the season, likely until December. But Barkov erased from the entire season is a loss far worse.

The beloved player teammates call Sasha will also miss playing for his native Finland in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy next February in addition to the whole of the NHL season barring a recovery miracle.

A center by position and centerpiece by impact, Barkov for more than a decade has been the Panthers’ most reliable player and quietest star, his mild-mannered demeanor off ice and even on making it too easy for him to be underappreciated. His is the talent too easily taken for granted, the excellence assumed, always there.

It is a cliche’ in sports, heart and soul, but if this team had that embodiment, it is Barkov beyond question.

Barkov is the opposite of Tkachuk in personality, never the one with the humorous postgame quote or engaging TV soundbite. When ESPN’s College GameDay was in Coral Gables last week, it was Tkachuk invited onto the set, not Barkov.

Barkov is seldom the team’s leading goal scorer but usually tops in assists, as last season, an apt mirror of his selflessness. Antithesis of the “enforcer”-type, his times in the penalty box are rare.

But two years in a row he has won the Selke award as the league’s top defensive player among forwards. In last season’s championship Stanley Cup run it was Barkov — the Gentleman Assassin — defending against the other teams’ top goal threats. No one will miss his impact on the ice more than goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky when the puck drops for the Oct. 7 season opener against Chicago.

The news Barkov — of all people — is out for the season was a shock in part because the reliable one has appeared in 86% of all Florida games, including playoffs, in his 12 seasons, a high number in a sport of high-speed collisions. He is the franchise leader in career games played, goals, assists and points, as well as in power-play, short-handed and game-winning goals.

He is the greatest Panther of all across 32 franchise seasons in Sunrise, plainly put. And, just-turned 30, he still is in his prime.

I have always felt Barkov to be underrated and perhaps underappreciated, due in part to his unassuming personality and selfless role, but also to this never being a “hockey town,” not even now, with the sport grown exponentially in this market by back-to-back championships.

Barkov deserves, belatedly, finally, a place of highest stature in South Florida sports history as the Panthers’ equal of Dolphins great Dan Marino and Heat icon Dwyane Wade.

Now fate may have it that we have never appreciated Aleksander Barkov more than when he isn’t there.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.