Aleksander Barkov’s injury ‘not too sinister,’ has chance to play for Panthers in Game 4

The updates were vague, to put it mildly, when Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov left Monday’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final in the first period with a lower-body injury and didn’t return. Tuesday brought more clarity on the situation.

Barkov exited with roughly seven minutes remaining in the first period after Carolina Hurricanes center Jack Drury caught him with what appeared to be a harmless hit along the boards. Barkov didn’t come out for the second period. The Panthers still pulled out a 1-0 win without their No. 1 center, buoyed by a 32-save shutout from Conn Smythe Trophy frontrunner Sergei Bobrovsky.

The Panthers took a 3-0 stranglehold on the series with Monday’s victory, and that theoretically buys time for Barkov to recover. But how much time will he need?

Panthers coach Paul Maurice was coy about the timeline after Game 3, offering no update and choosing instead to quip, “”He’s at a Bar Mitzvah. Yeah, that’s what we’ll go with. Bar Mitzvah, and he didn’t want to disappoint the kids.”

On Tuesday morning, speaking to the Joe Rose Show, Maurice was much more specific. He claimed the injury “is not anything too sinister” and that there was a point at which they thought Barkov might return to Game 3.

“We’ll have a better idea after we see him today where he’s at, but I would say I’m more on the optimistic side right now,” Maurice told Miami’s WQAM.

It appears, then, that the Panthers have dodged quite a bullet. Barkov’s 12 points in 15 games are third on the team this postseason, and his 22:18 of average TOI is second only to Matthew Tkachuk among Panthers forwards. The question now is whether Maurice uses the 3-0 series cushion over Carolina as an opportunity to give Barkov some extra rest; only four teams in the NHL’s 105-season history have come back to win playoff series after trailing 3-0.

Game 4 is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET Wednesday night in Sunrise. Resting Barkov a game would give him until Friday’s Game 5 in Raleigh to heal up.