This is even worse than we expected...

This is even worse than we expected. Head coach Paul Maurice has an update on Sasha Barkov's knee injury. And yes, the return of the rat. Brad Marchand showed up in the last game, helped us squeak out a point at the end of the game against the Anaheim Ducks. He had some words about how it felt to be back on the ice. We'll talk about that game. We're going to look at Barkov and what's going on with him. And we're going to talk about tonight's matchup against the LA Kings, the oldest team in the league going against the Panthers, the second oldest team in the league. The Panthers hold the edge here according to the betters out there. So hopefully it's a pure win in regulation tonight. Guys, this is Panthers Digest. I'm your host Greg Andrews. Comment, like, share, subscribe, hype up the video. I appreciate all you guys tuning in, supporting me, supporting the channel, and the Panthers. I didn't put anything out yesterday because there really wasn't much of an update on Sasha Barkov, our captain. There was a little bit that came out and there's some confusion. I don't know if the Florida Panthers are trying to push people aside and lead them astray with what's really happening behind closed doors with Sasha Barkov. And they're doing what they're doing last year with his knee injury, which was, let's take care of business. Let the doctors do what they got to do. If he needs surgery, let's just go ahead and do it. And then we'll announce all this stuff after all of this has happened. I'm speculating on this, but maybe that's the road they're taking. I do know, we know, they are on the West Coast tour. So head coach Paul Maurice is not down here and actively engaging with what is happening with Sasha Barkov. He's trying to get these games done and get the team ready for tonight's matchup. So pretty crazy. But we're going to find out more, I believe, this afternoon. But it's been like day after day. Oh, we'll find out more tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. This is exactly what happened last year. To me, that's not a very good sign, especially after Armando Velez said this, he was hearing, he was told 10 to 12 weeks. So he'll be home. He'll be back ready for action around Christmas, new year, new years. What got confusing here is what head coach Paul Maurice had to say about what he was hearing and reading online about Sasha Barkov's possible return date. Here's what he had to say. He's meeting with Dr. Still and South Florida on the timeline for his return remains uncertain as of right now. He says, I don't know. No one else knows. He continued, do not bet your earned money on that one in terms of reports going around on this, like that Armando Velez report. I know you can bet on everything these days, but hang, but hang on to your cash. If I don't know, nobody else knows. That's a kind of push what he just previously said. And I showed you a little bit more context there. So what does this mean? I really don't know. The biggest thing is everyone is pointing to possibly a sprained MCL and maybe other things. That's why to me, there is more cause for concern in this. If he is saying, do not bet your hard earned dollar on what you're reading online about a return date. I don't know, like again, if he's playing damage control and saying, Hey, we're just trying to keep this hush hush right now, we don't want people to actively know what is happening with Barkov as of yet, or are things already, are the wheels already turning in terms of what is being done for him? Did he have surgery? Did he not? Was there more damage to the than originally reported? Cause on ESPN, there was a very quick little roundup about the MRI. And it really, the synopsis was it's not as bad as originally perceived by the doctors and the training staff at the game versus the San Jose Sharks. So a lot of cloudy stuff that's going out there, nothing definitive yet, a lot of dodging and not giving us any kind of an answer about what is going on with Barkov. Did he require surgery? Is he going to rehab? What's the extent of the does happen? I will probably end up breaking some news to you guys this afternoon, especially if I do hear back from my source. And for those of you who did write comments saying, why would somebody want to give you information behind closed doors and risk their job, their credentials, whatever, that's why you say they're an anonymous source to protect that individual. So whoever's writing that don't do it again. You obviously don't know about journalistic integrity or how we do things or how that works in just news in general, scandals, stuff like that, or sports journalism. Like I'm doing where I have connections and people will tell me certain things and they'll say, please keep my name out of it. But you're hearing this for me. I'm hearing it from other individuals. I can't name them either. Keep them anonymous. That's how it works. And then somebody else who said, just got to get this out of the way because it's driving me nuts when people do this. Yes. I'm using Sasha Barkov's name because he's on the floor to Panthers and I am reporting the news. I'm reporting on things from my sources. And when somebody's telling me something, I'm going to try to report on it. I'm using my gut to say, all right, you know what? I think this guy's right. I think this girl's right. This individual is relaying very solid information that I want to get out to you guys. And yeah, I'm going to talk about Alexander Barkov. It's not to pump up my beef up my, my, my viewers. No, but yes, because this is Panthers reporting the Florida Panthers. So you're an idiot. That's all I'm going to say. That's why I'm going to talk about the Chuck brothers. I'm going to talk about Bennett. I'm going to talk about Reinhardt. I'm going to talk about literally every single human being that is playing on that roster right now, from the AHL to the NHL, to the front office, to the coaching stuff. That is what I do as a sports journalist reporting on the Florida Panthers. That's a dumb comment that you put. That's why I deleted it. Don't do it again. It's ridiculous. If you do it again, I'm just going to keep deleting your stuff and then I will block you. So please stop doing that because you do not know what my job is and think before you write, just making yourself look really bad. So anyways, let's keep going here. Talking about some of the rumors out there now about, okay, what's going to happen now that, you know, Sasha Barkov is on LTIR. We have some cap space that has opened up. Yes. Gajevich is on LTIR too. So we have like a little over $4 million as of right now to spend, but we're calling up guys from the AHL, which I think is a smarter move. Petrovic, Lafferty have a combined almost 700 games of NHL experience. Great. Paul Maurice has even said the team is deeper than it was last year. And we are all the guys that we had waved at the end of preseason are on our AHL roster. Very different scenario than last year. Barkov is not out for the whole entire season. At least that's what we're being told at being on LTIR and SE LTIR that season ended. So in terms of getting some of this crap out of your Dylan Larkin is not coming out here. I hate that. Everybody's throwing up something that, Oh, maybe it comes here. We're not giving up Eto'o Lustreinen who we just extended. We're not giving up Lundell because when we tried to do something, they wanted Lundell and we said, no, you're not getting it. So it ain't going to happen. We don't have the trade assets. We don't have guys. We don't have draft assets. We've got nothing to give away. And plus we don't have the cap to make it work. Even if you did say we're okay, Lustreinen and Lundell, that's the dumbest thing we can do. You're giving up one of our lines. Why ain't going to happen. He's not coming here. I would take Tara Sanko over him any day of the week, any day of the week. So I would say Tara Sanko before Dylan Larkin, a hundred percent. As far as Aaron Eckblad, just to give you guys an update on him. He's not hurt. He flew back home because he and his wife had their first baby. So he's not going to be returning to this West coast road trip, but he will be ready for the C for the home opener this Saturday. So good news for him. Congratulations to Aaron Eckblad. And again, one of the things I wanted to say, the classy move by A.J. Greer during one of the breaks, talking about Sasha Barkov before he answered any questions, talking about how great of a captain he is, how horrible of a situation this is. Two years in a row going down with a knee injury, hopes the best for him. I mean, what a class act A.J. Greer was talking about Sasha Barkov. It just shows you the kind of player Barkov is on and off the ice, the respect that he gets. I think any player that's ever been a Florida Panther that was here when Sasha Barkov was on the team as a captain, has been nothing but he's one of the best captains I've ever had, if not the best captain. Says something about him. So again, San Jose fans who were cheering for his injury, shame on you. Anyways, let's give a real quick look at this game. Marchand came back. Yes, we lost in overtime, but hey, the big news here is that we're taking points away from every single game we've played so far this season. That's good. So, four points out of a total of six, we'll take it. Marchand is back, got that goal with one minute and 50 seconds left to tie the game in regulation. Yes, we ended up losing. The whole game to me was like we were in control of it. We had the puck in the offensive zone so much, we were lazy with our passes. You see the 23 giveaways, that's what killed us. Our penalty kill and our power play were atrocious, allowing three of four goals. We were out of place. I don't know what is going on with our PK and our power play, but it's not good. Five on five, we're amazing. We've only allowed one goal at even strength this season. They have looked awesome, and I know some people are questioning Brady Kachuk, was it the right move? By the way, our face-up circle, we were great. I'll show you some of the numbers right now, but as far as Brady Kachuk, somebody's saying, he's a bust. We're three games into the season. Shut up. Seriously, we're three games into the season. If we were 35 games in the season, and he's got goose eggs across the board, then I'd be like, yeah, this is a total, what the hell is happening? But that's not the case. He's going to start picking it up. There's been a change to his line, bringing Brad Marchand in, and he hasn't been practicing with him. Eller was on that line practicing. Marchand's only had like four practices with the team, so that's a change, especially with Reinhardt moving to center. That's a big change for guys to have to adapt to, and the line has got to get the chemistry there. That's a lot of what has to happen now. It's a change. The locker room sense is going to change a bit. I know Marchand's going to be that leader. We're going to be okay. Give it time. I have a feeling he's going to come out tonight and break out. You're going to see. So, numbers here for everybody, okay. Take a look at Brady Kachuk in the face-off circle. Won five of his eight, and Lundell, massive. 11 of his 17 face-offs, he won. Great job there. Vilmanis, I want you to take a look at his TOI, 13 minutes and 38 seconds, four shots. He's averaging a lot of shots in a very little tiny bit of time. That's good news for Vilmanis. I think he's here to stay. He ain't going back to the AHL. I think he's going to be on the starting roster every single night, unless they give him rest. But you see the giveaways there. Lundell, Kachuk, not very good, but hey, we weren't moving well with the puck and without the puck. We weren't trying to create passing lanes. We weren't trying to create shooting lanes. It was ugly. We were pushing them around. I mean, I'm going to go back to this again to show you. The hits were pretty evil. Equal, 27 to us, 26 for them. But we were just getting pushed around again. We were just not good on our penalty kill, and that's what really shot us in the foot. And we had multiple opportunities to win it in overtime, unfortunately. And that Gustav Forsling penalty in overtime, that's such a horrible call by the refs. But anyways, we're going to keep rocking here. You can see the hits. Six hits for Garnett Hathaway. I think he's leading the team in hits. He has been awesome with his physicality. The mom has been pretty good too, but I don't know. Should Paul Maurice start to think about we need more offense on that fourth line? Maybe you try Cole Reinhardt. Give him a shot and say, hey, let's bring him up. Send the mama down because, he's not really doing much offensively. He's not. Tell me what you guys think down in the comments section. Do you think we should change that? I like him out there. I think his energy's great and he's a physical player, but not really much to do there offensively. So, blocked shots. We got to keep doing that. Anaheim blocked a ton of shots. Guttis is blocking shots. Seth Jones shooting the puck a ton, also playing a ton of minutes. He's shouldering the weight defensively and that needs to change. I mean, he's, I mean, guys are saying, I think it was Forsling or it might've been Mikula who said that Seth Jones looks like he's the best that he's ever been as a Florida Panther. He's faster this year and he just keeps getting faster. He looks great this year. Seth Jones looks awesome. I'm excited to see what he's going to do this year. Blocked shots. Things got to change. We got to get more physical. I mean, a lot of giveaways there. And yeah, we got to start blocking more shots, guys. I mean, yeah. Goal tending. Again, don't look at the save percentage. Look at the goals against average. Markstrom has played very, very well. The three goals that were scored were not his fault. Our team was out of position and they were sniped. Gautier was just sniping it in the corners. And the overtime winner, I mean, we were just not good. I think Paul Maurice knows that we haven't practiced enough on our special teams. I mean, I think they started practicing probably like about four or five games until the regular season started. Four or five days, excuse me, until the regular season started. So that needs to be worked on. But anyways, let's take a look at tonight's matchup. Again, Markstrom has been great. I really think he's been great. So playing at the LA Kings tonight, last game on this road trip, thank goodness. And then they're going to come home and get a decent amount of rest. And then we're right back on the road again, which is absolutely crazy to think about, but I like our matchup. I think we should be favored in this one. And we are, I already said this, that, you know, Markstrom, Schmid have been better than Forsberg and Kemper, uh, Kuemper or however you want to say his name. Uh, they have been the better goaltending duo. And I do hope Markstrom starts tonight. I think he will. Um, and we did find out that the reason why Schmid started, Schmid started the second game was because Markstrom was not feeling well. So it wasn't injury or anything like that. It just wasn't feeling well. Hopefully he's good to go tonight. Again, we played tonight and then we have a few days off and the next game is on the 10th at home, home opener against Minnesota. So I like our numbers here. Pretty solid. I mean, look, Markstrom 914, 1.40 goals against average, not too shabby, but let's take a look at team stats. Here we go. Better. We're better across the board period. Um, shots against average significantly lower, but we have fewer shots on net penalty minutes. We have a ton of them, a ton. And you can see our power play goals against, they're not very good either. So I'm going to say it's in our favor, but you can see they have two shorthanded goals and it's Artemi Panarin who is going to be their, their guy. That's going to be the most dangerous for us to have to watch, keep our head on a swivel when, uh, this game is going on. I mean, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be a good one. I think we're going to, we're going to come away with the win. Am I going to say convincingly that it's going to be all Panthers? Not necessarily. Let's call, I'm not going to even say that the end score, but hopefully they pick it back up. I think Brady could, Chuck's going to have a good game tonight. Marchand's going to start clicking on that line. And I think they're going to be riding a wave heading back home and, uh, come away with a W tonight. Let's hope they do. Hopefully we get some good news this afternoon about Sasha Barkov. I'll have updates on all this guys. Let me know what you think. What is really happening behind closed doors with Sasha Barkov? Is it worse than we're all fearing? Is it just a grade two MCL tear, uh, MCL sprain, excuse me, that maybe they're contemplating on rehab or surgery, or has he already had surgery? This again, it feels a lot like last season that they're doing stuff already. It's being done and they're just waiting to get a report from the doctors and wait to get back home to say, Oh yeah, by the way, this is what's going on with Barkov because the doctors have finally told us, but he says there's more information that needs to come out. That's what Marie said for us to make a decision and tell you guys what and he's talking to doctors. So we'll wait and see. That's it for today, guys. Go cats.