FORT LAUDERDALE — The Florida Panthers will be missing a star when they return to the ice and raise the banner for their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship.
Superstar winger Matthew Tkachuk is recovering from offseason surgery that repaired the torn hip adductor and sports hernia that he suffered last year, Panthers general manager Bill Zito said at the team’s preseason media day on Wednesday.
“His timeline is longer-term,” Zito said. “We’ll evaluate along the way to try to get a little better understanding. As we get closer, I think we’d be able to say with more certainty when (his return) would be, but it’s going to be months, for sure.”
Zito said Tkachuk could return around December, but that is not assured.
“(I) kind of made a joke with that: If you’re driving across the country, you can measure the distance and say, ‘Oh, it should take this amount of time, but what if it snows?'” Zito said.
“And I think that there’s measuring posts along the way, and then how your reaction is at a certain point would then dictate when the next one is. So it’s not necessarily equally laid out time-wise, like where once a month, what are your expectations would be if you pass the first-month threshold, there’s a new one, and then what setbacks, or what progress could you make?”
Tkachuk suffered the injury during the 4 Nations Face Off in the winter and sat out the remainder of the regular season. He returned for the postseason, scoring two goals in his first game back. He finished the playoffs with eight goals and 15 assists.
“Obviously, not having Chucky for a couple of months, is never a great thing,” forward Sam Bennett said.
“He’s a huge part of this team, not only as an incredible player, but as a leader. But he’s one of the best at staying upbeat, staying positive, staying around the guys. He’s always in the locker room, chirping the guys and doing some pranks and whatever. But he’s a really important part of this group, so obviously, we’re going to have to step up, and guys are going to have to step up for the first few months when he’s out. But there’s a lot of really good players on this team, so we certainly have a lot of depth to try and fill that hole as much as we can.”
The Panthers will also be without forward Tomas Nosek, who was a key fourth-line contributor. Nosek suffered a knee injury during the offseason, Zito said. Nosek re-signed with the Panthers on a one-year, $775,000 contract this offseason. Zito said Nosek will miss several months.
Nosek had one goal and eight assists during the regular season and had three assists during the playoffs. But Florida has depth it can use to fill Nosek’s role while he is out.
“One of the blessings that you guys have seen with our group is the coach can deploy players up and down the lineup with what other players he wants in whatever situations,” Zito said.
“You’ve seen any number of players have success playing with (Aleksander Barkov), and then you might have a guy who’s gone from playing with Sasha to the to the fourth line. And so now, not only do we have opportunities, for example, for Luke Kunin, Tyler Motte, but we have a chance to play them to their strengths, as well.”
Said veteran Aaron Ekblad: “We have an extremely deep team, which is really nice. We feel like we’ll be able to compete with or without them. Obviously, very excited to get them back as soon as they can.”
