Although Florida’s two NHL teams are among the best in the league, the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning have encountered some worrisome developments on the health front that could hurt their start to the season.
Panthers captain and star center Aleksander Barkov left practice Thursday with an apparent right leg injury, and he’s being evaluated. But if Barkov misses significant time, that will mean Florida begins the year with two key players – Barkov and star left winger Matthew Tkachuk – on the sidelines.
There are very few, if any, teams that can handle losing two stars without suffering in the standings. And if Barkov and Tkachuk miss a good chunk of the season, the Panthers could find themselves fighting for a wild-card berth this year instead of trying to clinch the Atlantic Division.
While the Panthers ended up making their first of three straight Cup final appearances despite finishing in the second wild-card spot in 2022-23, there’s still legitimate cause for concern for the defending Cup champions if Barkov’s injury is serious. Especially in the hyper-competitive Atlantic, where all of its teams want to make the playoffs this year, the Panthers will face stiff competition just to get into the post-season. They need all hands on deck to be a night-in, night-out consistent group.
Meanwhile, in Tampa Bay, the Lightning have been without star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy for about a week now, and he won’t play in either of the Bolts’ two games this weekend. Tampa coach Jon Cooper said he expects Vasilevskiy to play in the season opener on Oct. 9, but it has to be disconcerting to Lightning fans to see arguably the team’s most important player to be out of action for any stretch of time.
With due respect to backup goalie Jonas Johansson, Vasilevskiy has been one of the league’s biggest workhorse goalies – playing 63 games last season – for good reason. Vasilevskiy had a .921 save percentage and 2.18 goals-against average last year, while Johansson had a .895 SP and 3.13 GAA in 19 games. The backup just hasn't shown he can handle a bigger role yet, and if Vasilevskiy suffers a setback, the Lightning could be in trouble.
If they have any hope of playing well in the Atlantic this year, the Lightning need Vasilevsky to be healthy. So you can see why Bolts fans might be nervous right now.
The Lightning are built to win this year, and suffering any slump could end their playoff aspirations. The same now goes for the Panthers if someone else of significance goes down. Even teams with admirable depth, such as the Lightning and Panthers, can only take so many blows before their big picture has holes they can’t fix. The Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres and other Eastern Conference squads will be hungry to steal a playoff spot from somebody.
No team goes without injuries anymore. But injuries to certain players can absolutely derail a team’s best-laid plans. As two recent Cup-winning teams, the Panthers and Lightning know that their best players had to be available when it mattered most for them to win four playoff series in a given year. So seeing the big names already sidelined should be a sobering trend for teams, Florida and Tampa Bay included. You can’t go without elite players for weeks on end without hurting your team’s bottom line.
If you’re healthy, or health-adjacent, that’s half the battle nowadays. You need good fortune with injuries to win in the grinding regular-season marathon, and right now, the Panthers and Lightning aren’t having much good fortune in that regard. We’ll see if they can hold the fort until their key players return.
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