Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov receives the Stanley Cup on June 17, 2025. (Photo by Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)
NHLI via Getty Images
When Bill Zito landed in the Sunshine State as the Florida Panthers’ general manager in 2020, he wasted now time turning the franchise into a juggernaut. But after news emerged on Friday that Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov is expected to miss seven-to-nine months following knee surgery to repair a pre-season injury, Zito will face arguably his toughest challenge yet as he tries to prepare to chase the 2026 Stanley Cup.
Not just the captain but also a three-time winner of the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward, including in 2024 and 2025, Barkov’s 44 points over the last two playoff runs tie him with Carter Verhaeghe for second-most on the Panthers, and his 981:11 of total post-season ice time leads all Florida forwards.
The Panthers are coming off three straight appearances in the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023 before their back-to-back wins. But the chance of a three-peat as champion was already slim, even before Barkov’s injury. It hasn’t happened in more than 40 years, since the the New York Islanders won four in a row in the 21-team league between 1980 and 1983.
Now, with 32 NHL teams, there’s over 50 percent more competition. And while the playing field was levelled somewhat by the introduction of the salary cap in 2005, new rules that are coming into effect this year ahead of the official beginning of the next collective bargaining agreement on Sept. 15, 2026 will create an uncharted landscape as Zito tries to work around the loss of his franchise player.
Firstly — teams are now limited in how much cap space they’re allocated to boost their roster when a star player is placed on long-term injured reserve during the regular season, unless he’s also officially declared unavailable for the full year including playoffs. Under the new rules, even though Barkov’s cap hit for 2025-26 is $10 million, the Panthers will only receive $3.8 million in relief for the time that Barkov is on LTIR — the equivalent of the league’s average salary for the 2024-25 season. The same is true for Matthew Tkachuk’s $9.5 million cap hit. After returning for the playoffs, Tkachuk is back on the sidelines as he continues to rehab the injury he suffered at the 4 Nations Face-Off last February. He’s currently targeting a December return date.
Teams are also now required to fit their roster under a new cap in the playoffs. Barkov’s most optimistic current timeline could have him ready to return right around mid-April, when the post-season begins.
In the past, players like Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Evander Kane of the Edmonton Oilers have easily been slotted into playoff lineups after missing entire regular seasons. The new playoff cap requires teams to be under the $95.5 million ceiling for 2025-26 with their actual playing roster of 18 skaters and two goaltenders — which does leave more wiggle room than the full 23-player lineup that’s typically used in the regular season.
Zito will need to ensure that he keeps post-season space available for Barkov even while he tinkers with his regular-season roster.
“Somewhere between the absurd and the ridiculous and the probable, there’s a spectrum of possibilities that we have to consider,” Zito said Saturday. “I told our guys it’s no different, actually, than what we do every day. From a roster and personnel availability standpoint, what do we need to get better? What could help us now? What could help us in the long run? What considerations do we need to entertain in order to just keep being aware and keep getting better. That process is already in place. You can’t replace Sasha Barkov, but what options might be available? The decision might be option A, option Q, option H, and maybe we watch and take some time if there’s no real answer. It’s a fluid exercise, but the consideration of anything and everything is in play.”
Another new rule will see the pre-season drop to just four games for each team starting in the fall of 2026. The regular season will increase concurrently to 84 games, but part of the justification for the change was to lower the risk of injury for key veterans during meaningless pre-season play.
Barkov’s injury is a reminder that accidents can still happen anywhere, anytime. After he and the other Panthers veterans spent the first week of training camp training off-ice after playing into late June for the last three seasons, the 30-year-old center was hurt when he got tangled up with fellow Finn Nikko Mikkola in an innocent-looking practice drill during his first day back on the ice.
Perhaps the stars will align and Barkov will come back fresh and healed-up in April, rather than worn down after going through the grind of a condensed regular-season schedule and what’s expected to be a gruelling gauntlet at the 2026 Winter Olympics next February.
First, Florida will need to make the playoffs in a tough Atlantic Division that features improved teams in Ottawa and Montreal and a Boston Bruins squad that’s looking to bounce back after an unexpected last-place finish in 2024-25. In the Eastern Conference wild-card race, the Columbus Blue Jackets were knocking at the door last season and the New York Rangers are also expecting to contend again in the Metropolitan Division.
It’s never good for the NHL to be missing its biggest stars. But after the Panthers looked unbeatable last June and kept most of their main roster intact through the offseason, the door has opened a little wider for a challenger to step through when the stakes go up again for the 2026 Stanley Cup chase next spring.