The Panthers' Heavy Reliance Of NHL Veterans Is A Double-Edged Sword

The Florida Panthers have been one of the NHL’s most successful teams, in no small part because they bet on veteran players, and those veterans carried them to back-to-back Stanley Cups and a third straight Cup final appearance in 2024-25.

But the Panthers’ reliance on older players is a double-edged sword, and in the 2025-26 campaign, as well as at the start of the current 2026-27 season, Florida is seeing the downside of that approach.

Of course, we’re talking about the early-season injuries to Panthers star center and captain Aleksander Barkov, as well as left winger Brad Marchand. Florida has dodged a bullet in that neither Barkov nor Marchand is going to be sidelined for the entire season, as Barkov was last year. There’s light at the end of the tunnel for the Panthers, but that doesn’t mean there’s no significant risk in being reliant on so many veterans.

Indeed, given that the Panthers are the second-oldest team in the league – only the Los Angeles Kings, who have an average age of 30.79 years, are older than Florida at 30.58 years old – you have to acknowledge that Panthers GM Bill Zito is playing with fire by using relative greybeards to power the organization toward a bounce-back season. 

It might not be so problematic for Florida if some of their healthy veterans were contributing more to the cause. First-year Panther Brady Tkachuk has been completely held off the scoresheet through his first five games, and the same is true for center Sam Reinhart.

And with due respect to 37-year-old center Lars Eller, when Eller is tied for the second-most points on the team with three points in four games, there’s something seriously lacking about this Florida squad.

Not every older team is destined to fail. The Colorado Avalanche are the league’s third-oldest team at an average age of 30.41 years, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are the fourth-oldest at 30.28 years old. Neither of those two teams is dealing with major injuries, aside from the potential loss of Leafs defenseman Chris Tanev, who left Saturday's game early.

In addition, there’s no direct correlation between a player’s age and their health status. Sometimes, a team has bad luck with injuries, regardless of how old their roster might be.

That said, when players do get a lot of miles on their competitive odometers, the toll taken on their bodies can prove to be problematic. And although nobody could’ve predicted that Barkov and Marchand in particular would’ve suffered major injuries this season, it may not be completely shocking to see the Panthers impacted by health woes.

At some point, bad luck is likely to catch up with any NHL team, and the most improbable thing is going through a season without any major injuries at all.

Thus, Florida’s misfortune out of the gate could again be a mitigating factor in the Panthers getting back into the playoff picture this season. When league parity means the difference between making and missing the post-season could be only a few points, having some of your key contributors out of action for any notable stretch could ultimately sink your team’s chances at making the playoffs, especially in the Atlantic Division.

The Panthers have only a 2-1-2 record, so things could’ve been worse for them to start the season. But the longer their high-impact veterans are sitting in the press box, the more likely it is that Florida is going to face an uphill battle to be a playoff team.

The sooner Barkov and Marchand get back on the ice, the better. But there’s no guarantee their injuries will be the only major injuries this year. And the next Panthers player who goes down could leave a hole in the lineup that Zito can’t adequately fill.

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