Florida Panthers Still NHL’s Team To Beat Despite Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk Injuries

The Florida Panthers made a major statement in their season-opening win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

The two-time defending Stanley Cup champions defeated the Blackhawks, 3-2, while raising their championship banner in front of a sellout crowd of 19,655 at Amerant Bank Arena. Most importantly, they did so despite the absence of two of their best players in captain Aleksander Barkov and alternate captain Matthew Tkachuk, who are both sidelined due to injuries.

Barkov will be out for the entire regular season due to an ACL injury, while Tkachuk will be sidelined until at least December due to recovery from the torn adductor he initially suffered during the 4 Nations Face-off tournament in February.

Despite a feisty effort by the Connor Bedard-led Blackhawks and a gutsy effort by former Panthers backup goalie Spencer Knight, Florida once again rose to the occasion. Although the score indicated a close game, the tape showed a different story. The Panthers out-shot the Blackhawks all game long and spent a large portion of the game in the offensive zone pressuring Knight.

The stat sheet reflects the following – the Panthers had 37 shots to the Blackhawks’ 19. The third period saw Florida out-shoot Chicago, 11-5. The Panthers kept the offensive pressure all night to the point where the Blackhawks couldn’t pull Knight for an extra man on the ice until there was under a minute left in the game.

Florida Panthers’ Depth Is Still Deepest In NHL Even Without Aleksander Barkov And Matthew Tkachuk

While the Blackhawks aren’t exactly the best team, it was a notable effort by the home team considering the circumstances. The Panthers were playing for the first time without both of their top players on a night they were hanging their championship banner.

As they have so many times before, the Panthers proved they’re still the team to beat even if it wasn’t pretty.

Despite the absence of Barkov and Tkachuk, a number of key role players stepped up to fill the void. Three different Panthers players scored a goal, including A.J. Greer, Carter Verhaeghe and Jesper Boqvist.

“The important parts is we had Boqvist and Greer score — we’re going to need other people to fill in for some goals,” said head coach Paul Maurice after the game. “There was lots of good for our first game.”

While Verhaeghe has been one of the Panthers’ top offensive players in recent seasons, Greer is known more as an enforcer — he had 130 penalty minutes last season, by far the most on the team — than an offensive wizard. As far as Boqvist is concerned, he had just 12 goals last season, the ninth-most on the team.

Mackie Samoskevich – who ranked ninth on the team with 31 total points last season – also got into the mix with a team-leading two assists.

“It’s kind of the motto even with them (Barkov and Tkachuk) in the lineup,” said Brad Marchand of the “next man up” mentality after the game. “You look at the way we played to finish the season and into the playoffs. That was our game, just kinda grinded it out, competed and with our depth, it’s a recipe for success. Obviously those are some big holes to fill. It’s just new opportunities for guys, next man up mindset.

“Just a great opportunity and we’re going to have to grind it out,” Marchand continued to say. “We’re going to get everyone’s best every night, we know that. They’re going to come in and compete at the highest level. No game is going to be easy. We just have to prepare for that.”

The performance once again illustrated that the Panthers have the deepest roster in the NHL. They won despite their main core players — Brad Marchand, Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart — not scoring a single goal.

It’s obviously a long season and it’s hard to make too much out of one regular season matchup. But this game was a demonstration of the key trait of this team — resilience — despite all of the adversity they’ve faced.

Keep in mind that this is a team that previously had to weather the two-month absence of Tkachuk towards the end of the regular season last year, they had to overcome a 2-0 series deficit — and two-goal deficit in Game 3 — against the Toronto Maple Leafs and had to fight off a 3-0 series comeback against the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals.

“We rely on everybody and Mackie (Samoskevich) has looked unbelievable from the second he came into camp — Boqvist the same thing — the new Conn Smythe winner, he took it from Benny (Bennett),” says Marchand. “He’s been looking so good. It’s great to see that we rely on our depth throughout the entire game and that’s why every good team has success. You can rely on a couple of guys for a little bit and for periods of the year, but to have success throughout the year, you need everyone and it’s great that we still have that.”

We’ll obviously see how this Panthers squad fares over the coming months without Barkov and Tkachuk — they’ll play at least 24 games without Tkachuk — but Tuesday night’s season-opening win once again illustrates why Florida is still the team to beat until proven otherwise.