This completely changes EVERYTHING...

This completely changes everything for the Florida Panthers this season. Alexander Barkov went down with an apparent knee injury. The only good news is that it's not the knee that he had surgery on last season. The bad news, well we're gonna get into that in just a moment. MRI is scheduled for today. We should probably get word maybe later today, more than likely tomorrow, but it's not good. Guys this is Panthers Digest, a very somber Panthers Digest today. I'm your host Greg Andrews. Comment, share, like, subscribe, hype up the video. I appreciate all you guys tuning in. This is an update for those of you who might not have watched the game last night or were able to go through the whole game or even just the first period of it. This was a second period injury and it's not good. This is not good. He was battling for a puck in the corner and by the way, the Sharks were beating him up all night. Celebrini had a cheap shot on him and cross-checked him and nothing was called. It was a cheap shot. Cheap shots are cheap shots. Yeah, Brady Kachuk went after Celebrini. Not after that play, but it was different than Truba came after Kachuk. I mean it was, they played well last night considering all things, coming back, tying it up, losing in overtime, but the story of the night is this, guys. Unfortunately, right here. Head coach Paul Maurice's Sasha Barkov will be looked at on Friday in Southern California as he appeared to sustain an injury to his left leg in the second period of Thursday's overtime loss. It's like deja vu. This is a recurring nightmare. Very different injury than last season. Obviously, last year was kind of a freak accident. This actually is kind of like the same thing in a way. He fell awkwardly in the corner. He kind of just went down and the thing that I don't know and it's really hard to tell is did his knee just give out? Because if you look at him, he's standing up in the corner battling for a puck and all of a sudden, he just kind of collapses. He does a little shimmy, pushes off that left leg and just kind of falls down. You guys can probably find it. It's going to be all over SportsCenter, I'm sure and NHL Network, whatever you want to call it. The video is going to be everywhere and that left leg gets kind of bent backwards, falls back. That left leg kind of gets trapped to the side and the leg kind of swooshes out from underneath him and it didn't look good. He went off and what's very troubling is he was pissed and you guys know he doesn't show that much emotion, but he was right there where the door is to exit. They opened it immediately. He walked off onto his own power, which is kind of good, but doesn't mean jack squat, but he was pissed. He threw his equipment down and was not happy and I wouldn't be surprised to hear if Paul Maurice, I mean, usually they're pretty quiet about injuries. We didn't know much last season until it was probably a good four or five days after his knee buckled, but if there's anything where they say they heard a pop, really bad news, really bad news. Timetable for how long he's going to be out, well, that remains to be seen. You'll know more tomorrow. Forsling didn't play. He was a healthy scratch yesterday. I think they're just resting him, but just to let you guys know, if it's a sprain, four to six weeks for Barkov, if he tore it, it's season ending. LTIR and we are going to talk about possible replacements, not necessarily replacements, but guys that we could technically bring in. One of these things I think is pretty outlandish because there's no way in hell we could bring this guy in with the assets that we don't have. But anyways, so everything's scheduled for today. Maybe we find out today from Paul Maurice through press conference, what is going on? They do not have a game, I believe until Sunday. So that is good news. So the guys can rest, the team is deep. I'm not going to be pushed away and say, oh my God, the season is lost. It's not. The team is very, very deep. I think other guys will step up in this situation. Brad Marshan will come back. But this is a gut punch, guys. My goodness. So let's keep talking about this. Lucio Reining, you never want to see your teammate go down, especially your captain. Hopefully he's fine, nothing major. Yeah, obviously we need guys to step up for him and for the team. Again, we're not going to know the extent of this, but it looked like it wasn't horrible. But there are people out there saying, look, it could be an MCL tear or an MCL sprain. Hopefully the MRI comes back clean and he just needs some time to rest. And yeah, hey, for four to six weeks, I think the guys can hold down the fourth. This is not like last season again, where he went down and the rest of the team just kind of followed suit and everyone was getting injured left and right. I don't think that's going to be the case. I think we're going to be okay. But what are they going to do on that top line now? Who makes the jump up? Do we see a Brady, Matthew, I actually need a center. So I don't want that voice, I'm losing it. But maybe that second line, Bennett might have to go to that top line as a center. I mean, who knows? It's really tough to think right now because I'm just thinking, my God, Barkov, the poor guy is such a phenomenal player, best two-way player in the game and even better player off the ice. And this happens to him two years in a row. But I don't want to think ultra bad about the situation yet. Let's wait and see, cross the bridge when we get here. But that is the news. The extent of the injury is unknown, but it is a left knee injury. And let's everybody cross your fingers. It's not severe. So let's keep on going. Jamison Oliver also reports on this to Chuck talking about the game last night. We could have gone one or two ways and felt bad for ourselves and mailed it in. But I thought we played really well, especially in the third. That's a pretty good, that's a gritty point that we got. It was a pretty gritty game, a lot of stuff going on that normally you don't see. I mean, we were very physical. They outshot us. Our defense up front obviously with Barkov out changed. Yeah, I mean, we were outshot, but we were more physical than they were. At least we scored on the power play, but they scored on the power play as well. They also scored a shorthanded goal. I mean, there were mistakes. There were mistakes last night, but West Coast road trips are always really tough, really tough, especially after a hard fought game against Carolina. But anyways, let's keep rocking and rolling here, guys. So that's terrible to see. Talking about where the Panthers are right now. It's a long year. You got to grind out points. We would have liked to get the extra one in overtime, especially after the kill, which was awesome. But you know, all in all, you take that point and run. So not a terrible start to the season, but with Barkov going down right now, it's not looking very good. So what does this all mean? Well, one insider has said this. I think this is ridiculous because we can't do this. Pete Blackburn says, if Barkov is actually hurt again, it feels like it's safe to assume that Larkin's going to be a Panther by the end of the weekend. With what assets? We're not getting rid of Lundell. Luce Drinan just signed an extension. We don't have any trade capital except for a first rounder in 2030. Who are you going to give up? You're not going to trade Brad Marchand. There's nobody. I mean, what? Maybe Cole Reinhart and they're going to laugh at that because they literally want a younger prospect that is similar to the style that Larkin plays. That's what they're looking for. Detroit wants that. And we're not going to give it up. Lundell is too young to give up. No way. If they think if Detroit thinks he is the future and he could be like Larkin, don't give him up. If everybody wants him, that's telling you something that he's such a phenomenal player. We're not giving him up. But I don't think Larkin is going to be the guy we're going to go after. These are the unrestricted free agents that remain. Obviously, now it looks like Vladimir Tarasenko comes right back into the picture as a player we can get. Remember, we don't have to get just a pure center. We can get a guy that can be a left wing or right wing and can potentially play center. I mean, all of all the four should potentially be able to be centers if need to be called upon. And this is that situation. But here are the unrestricted free agents as of now. Tarasenko actually is leading the list. But there's Michael Bunting, which we're rumored about earlier in this preseason, excuse me, offseason, Adam Henrik, Patrick Liening, and James Van Riemsdyk, which is an interesting one to think about. But of that list, guys, tell me what you think. Who do you think, if Barkov is going to miss considerable time, we should go after? I don't want to start talking LTIR. I don't want to start saying anything remotely in terms of long term. I'm just saying, if things go south and he's really hurt and will require surgery to miss the season, what do you guys think? Do we try to trade? Do we just go with an unrestricted free agent? Do we just lick our wounds and say, all right, you know what? Here's what we're going to do. We're deep enough. Bring up Cole Reinhart, put him on that fourth line. Have everybody pretty much stay, move Bennett up a line, put Tarasenko on the second line, maybe. I don't know. You guys let me know what you think. How are you going to move things around if Barkov is going to miss considerable time? Again, I don't want to speculate too much on the extent of the injury, but it did not look good. And the reaction from Barkov is the thing that troubles me the most. Because when a player goes down, walks off under his own power, but then is throwing his equipment is visibly agitated from the injury. He knows something that we don't. And that usually means it's not good. Anyways, guys, that's it for this episode of Panther's Digest. Oh my God. I just can't believe this. It's early in the morning. I'm doing this literally first thing when I woke up because I was watching the game. I was going to do it last night, but I'm like, I'm going to wait till the morning. Put this out there for you guys. See if there's any updated information, but this is it. Don't know what the Panthers are going to do. This better not be foreshadowing for the rest of the season. That's all I got to say. But anyways, guys, let's hope they can pull through this. Let's hope the news is better than expected and it is just a sprain and he's just going to be missing several weeks rather than the entire season. So anyways, guys, let me know what you think. I'll probably be posting later today, more than likely tomorrow once I get word on what exactly is the state of Barkov's knee, how bad is the damage. Cross your fingers again, pray to the hockey gods it's not as bad and he will be back this season. But that's it. Thank you guys so much again. Comment down below on all this stuff. Until that time tomorrow, go cats. Or maybe later today if I found that information. I'll let you guys know.