Panthers give MAJOR Update... This is HUGE

The Florida Panthers have a major update, a huge update, on Brad Marchand's recovery and when we might see him this season. This is Panther's Digest, guys. Once again, welcome back. I'm your host Greg Andrews. Comment, like, share, subscribe. Hype up the video. I appreciate all of you guys tuning in, supporting me, supporting the channel and the Florida Panthers. Getting right to it, trying to make this as quick as possible, but before I get into the Brad Marchand news, we have this and I love this. Paul Maurice has come out and has a phenomenal quote and this is what he had to say when asked about people saying, why not put the Kachuck brothers with Sam Bennett on the same line? And Paul Maurice says he's not going to do that, he's not going to give the people what they want because they'll be in jail before the buck drops. We all know that line. Every single guy on that line would probably be in a fight before the puck even dropped or the second it hits the ice, that's, each one of those guys is going to find a dance partner and we're going to be off to the races. Or I don't even want to get into the rest of it just because it's such a great quote by Paul Maurice. I love this man as a head coach. He's great and I hope he stays here for another decade or longer. Just a phenomenal quote by Paul Maurice, just saying he's not going to give people what they want. There's no chance that he will ever put them on the same line, but Hey, never say never. We could see this happen at some point during the season. If things need to get a little bit more rowdy, we'll see, but right now it looks like Brady Kachuck will be on that first line with Barkov and Reinhardt, but we'll see as the preseason unfolds, as we get closer to the regular season, what does Paul Maurice decide to do in terms of figure out the line? So now let's get into the Brad Marchand update. Brad Marchand to miss the start of the season after surgery. Now it might sound bad, but it's not as bad as you would all think it might be because I'm going to share some stuff that Bill Zito has says, has said about this. The good news is this Brad Marchand is skating. Bill Zito expects him to be back early in the season. I've said to you guys, maybe 10 games in, maybe stretch it to 15. I mean, we'll see, but the good news is he is skating. First practices tomorrow. I already said that earlier today in the other episode, Friday, Saturday is an open, it's open to the public for the practices and Saturday is a Florida Panthers fan fest. So when you're there, you might see Brad Marchand on the ice. Very good news, but it doesn't mean he's going to start the season. I don't think he's going to be on the opening day roster. I completely doubt it. I would expect him to be back probably somewhere between seven and 15 games with injuries he sustained and the surgery he had to have. So this is what Bill Zito said. He says, we're going to be very conservative in bringing him back. And I already said this to you all. I don't think the Florida Panthers are going to be rushing him back at all. This team is so unbelievably deep. I don't think they're going to say we need him back immediately or else our season's going to suffer and we are going to drop to the bottom of the division right away. And we can't do that with the first 10 games. That's not where they're going to be at. I think everyone out there knows Brad Marchand is important. He's an integral piece of this team, especially on that third line, but I don't think he's such a massive, tremendous piece of this working puzzle that we have that will make the wheels turn. He's not this giant cog that we need to make things run. I think with everybody else being healthy and just one player missing in Brad Marchand, we're going to be fine. Don't rush him back. And the best part is Bill Zito said, it's not really a worry or a concern of mine. That's how he feels about this team, guys. And he's very, very content with the roster that he has built. That's what that says. When he says it's not a worry or a concern of his, because he knows the team that's going to be on the ice is going to be fantastic. And when Brad Marchand comes back, it's going to be that much better. Let's keep going on here. Again, I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible. So we already know that Zanino Chara's last shift charity game. That's when Brad Marchand said he's not going to be able to be at the game. He had had off-season surgery, and unfortunately, he's not going to be able to make it there. And it was a last-minute surgery to repair the problems that he had. And again, the rumors are hip surgery, sports hernia, stuff like that. And just to let you guys know, the workings of the hip joint are very similar to the shoulder. So maybe it was a labrum tear. Maybe it was something that had to do with, I don't know, some of the smaller muscles that are in there. There is a cuff in there. So I mean, who knows? The rotator cuff. I mean, who knows? But I'm not going to speculate on all that, but it looks like sports hernia and hip injury. His numbers from 2024, I think we all know how great he was. He did miss some time. I don't know why I went back to that. There you go. 71 games played. This is in 2023-2024 season, 51 points, 23 and 28. He missed some time. Sorry, that's the 2024-2025 season when he came here, won the Stanley Cup. Missed a little bit of time with that hip. And then this was last season, 52 games, 54 points, 27-27. Great player. Now the question is, now we know that he is going to be missing time 100%. But he'll be back early on in the season. When that is, we don't know. I'm sure we'll get updates as we start getting into that fourth and fifth game. When are we going to be looking forward to seeing Brad Marchand finally take the ice and be on the roster on that third line? Brings me to this. I hope you guys can see this. I'm going to go to the bigger picture here. Here you go. So the names I have underlined are potential guys that could go on that third line or maybe somebody from that fourth line, like Vilmanis, like I've said already earlier today. Maybe Vilmanis goes onto that third line and it's Lindell Lustrand and Vilmanis. But then you have all these guys that have underlined it. Bastian, Beecher, Hathaway, Cruikshank, Reinhardt, Cole Reinhardt, obviously not Sam Reinhardt. These are all guys, and there's another page I'm going to get to in just a second, that we could see maybe work their way into the roster as the 13th forward. Are we going to get there? I know I've talked about this in one of my past episodes about who I believe the 13th player will be for the forwards. But I'm not going to rule out any one of these guys. I mean, there are still a lot of good names on here for this training camp roster that I like. I think Nathan Bastian is definitely one of those guys. We still have Cole Schwent and Santos Vilmanis, like I said. So that leaves us with two players right there, three, four, five, six, seven. There are eight players vying for the 13th position, possibly on that third line. We'll see. Who do you think it might be, guys? Comment down below and let me know. Do you think any one of these players will be able to get on that third line? Do you think it will be Vilmanis? Will it be Bastian? Will it be Beecher, Lafferty, Hathaway? Honestly, I still think Hathaway's going to be on that fourth line with Gajevic. But who's going to be the third person there? It's going to be a very interesting training camp and preseason to see who is going to be where, who's going to get cut, who's going to pass through waivers and go to the AHL, who will be claimed off of waivers. But right now, it's all about Brad Marchand, that he will be missing the start of the season, but probably will not miss a lot of time, even though, when I say a lot of time, like 20 games or more. Bilzito has literally said he expects him back early in the season. How many games? Who knows. But still, good to know that they're not rushing it back. They're going to be conservative with it. Let me know what you think about the Panthers' approach with Brad Marchand, in terms of taking their time, letting him work through this, get back to 100%, and make sure that he's ready to rock and roll, and hopefully play a good 60-plus games, give or take, this season, and then work well into the playoffs. So let me know who you think, who will take his place part-time. Obviously, it's likely a full league, two games. Let me know who you think it will be. And let me know what you think about Brad Marchand and the Panthers, Bilzito saying, hey, be conservative about this. That's it. Gotta go in, guys. Until next time, I'm going to have more stuff coming out, maybe later today, more than likely tomorrow, but stay tuned for that. Lot of things that are going to be coming up, that we'll be finding out about during this training camp. So stay tuned for that. Until then, go Cats.