The Florida Panthers are ready to defend their championship and go for the three-peat, but they will be without two of their key players to start the season. Aleksander Barkov may not see the ice this season after having surgery a few weeks ago to repair the ACL and MCL in his right knee. As for Matthew Tkachuk, he's expected to be out until December with a lower-body injury.
In this situation, some people would panic since they don't have their best players, but not head coach Paul Maurice. Instead, he thinks that this may bring more clarity to the group as they go through the regular season, according to of The Athletic.
“I would be more concerned (about the mental exhaustion) if Barkov and Tkachuk were in the lineup,” Maurice said. “Because you’re pretty sure with a group that good — you have some confidence in making the playoffs. … So with the injuries, we now have a very, very clear focus. We just won’t look the same with those two players out of our lineup. Nobody would. So now we’ve got to find a way. It almost builds some humility into your room, right? We’re going to have some tough nights here, and we’re going to get the best from everybody around the league. And we’re going to have to do it with a big chunk of our guys — just in terms of payroll alone — out of our lineup. I think that will bring the sense of urgency you might be concerned we wouldn’t have had. So we’ve got an internal focus now.
“The game doesn’t care what you did last year. You don’t own that (Stanley Cup). Just because you had it last year, you don’t own it. I know how hard we have to play here. But we have to do it every night. And a little bit of fear can be a real positive thing.”
It looks like Maurice is embracing the uncertainty of how the team will perform without Barkov and Tkachuk, and they still have a chance at being one of the top teams in the league. Over the past few years, they've battled adversity and still made it to the top, and this should be no different.
