Dave Hyde: How do Panthers replace their irreplaceable captain?

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Sep 28, 2025

Published in Hockey

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Many players are important, some even indispensable. But Aleksander Barkov is that rare, irreplaceable player who the Florida Panthers look like they’ll somehow have to replace.

The Panthers captain underwent surgery for a knee injury suffered after a common collision on his first practice Thursday had an uncommon outcome. The Panthers announced Friday night that he damaged his ACL (and MCL) and he’ll likely miss all of the 2025-26 season that hasn’t even begun.

So, the Panthers run for a third straight Stanley Cup has started in the worst of ways. Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, their opposite-styled leaders and central core, won’t be around when the puck drops on the season next month.

Cobbling together a few months without Tkachuk is one thing given the depth and talent on the Panthers. But winning in the deepest parts of the playoffs without Barkov as their freight train up the middle of the ice is a loss coach Paul Maurice didn’t try to mask.

“That’s the big man,’’ Maurice said of Barkov. “He’s such an important place in that locker room … At the end of the day, I know there’s the idea of next man up, I get all that, but there’s not a next man for Barky’s skates.”

It also means the Panthers already have collided with a prime reason why it’s so difficult maintain excellence in sports.

Luck.

Their baby dynasty of the past three years — two titles, another trip to the final round — shows how they’ve overcome slumps, controversies, adversities, injuries, re-configuring of roles and near-season-death experiences in the playoffs.

Bad luck is the roadblock you often can’t overcome, though. And a season-ending injury to Barkov would represent the worst kind of sports luck.

He’s Dan Marino on skates, Dwyane Wade on ice or whoever carries your mantle of greatness among South Florida’s athletes. He’s the best one playing now, too. Lionel Messi, no doubt, is an international icon for Inter Miami. But he’s 37 and in the twilight of greatness in a secondary league. Barkov, 30, is firmly seated in his career.

You don’t have to understand hockey or admire the sometimes subtle manner Barkov dominates a game to understand what the Panthers will miss. He scored 71 points in 67 regular-season games last year. So, that’s a tangible point a game they’ll miss.

Barkov also won back-to-back Selke Awards the past two years as the NHL’s top defending forward. Ask Edmonton star Connor McDavid, who had one goal in the Stanley Cup Final, if Barkov is worthy of that award.

As much as that, above all that, he’s the player who sets the unusual tone of the team. It’s a giving team, because he’s giving. That doesn’t mean he’s regularly handing out Finnish chocolates to office workers, although he does do that.

“He wants everyone to be happy,’’ general manager Bill Zito once said. “He goes out of his way to make sure everyone on the team knows how important they are.”

That’s why last spring, after taking the winning captain’s lap with the Stanley Cup trophy, he didn’t hand it to another named star. He gave it to a small-name defenseman, Nate Schmidt, who even said, “I couldn’t believe it.”

It was the second Cup for so many Panthers. Schmidt had waited a career to win the Cup, though. So Barkov gave it to him to carry. That told you some of how they repeated as champs.

And now they’ll try this third time the hardest of ways. They’ll say all the right stuff come opening night, and be the toughest of outs come next playoffs. But nobody’s pretending this was just another player suffering an injury.

This is how it can end in sports, too. The Miami Dolphins went to three consecutive Super Bowls, winning two, from 1971 to 1973. Their run the collapsed after the 1974 season when stars Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kiick went to the rival World Football League.

The Miami Heat went to four consecutive NBA Finals, winning two titles, from 2010 to 2014 in their Big Three Era. Then the biggest of the three, LeBron James, left for Cleveland and that was that.

The Panthers were clear favorites for a third straight Cup on Wednesday. It all changed on Thursday when Barkov went down. He’s that rare, irreplaceable player the Panthers will have to replace this season.

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