Aleksander Barkov Still Out vs. Islanders, Likely to Return Monday in Buffalo
Aleksander Barkov will likely return for Monday night’s clash with the Buffalo Sabres before the Florida Panthers head to Finland for the Global Series on Nov. 1.
NEW YORK — Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov will miss one more game before making his return to the lineup.
The captain will not play in Saturday night’s clash with the New York Islanders as the Panthers look to continue their red-hot 4-1-1 stretch.
Barkov is expected to make his return when the Panthers take on the Buffalo Sabres in their last game before heading to Barkov’s hometown of Tampere, Finland for the NHL’s Global Series on Nov. 1.
He rejoined the main group for the team’s morning skate for the first time since sustaining his injury on Oct. 10, and if all goes well afterward, he will return against the team that blitzed the Panthers, 5-2, in their first game without him.
“We believe if Barkov gets off the ice feeling good today, we’ll see him against Buffalo,” coach Paul Maurice said after the team’s morning skate at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.
Jonah Gadjovich (back spasms) and Tomas Nosek (upper-body) also joined the main group for Saturday’s morning skate and remain on track to return to the lineup during the Finland trip.
“Gadjovich may be closer to Finland before he is ready,” Maurice said. “And we believe Nosek will be available in Finland as well.”
Spencer Knight will get the start in net against an Islanders team coming off of a 4-3 overtime win over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night.
Semyon Varlamov is expected to get the start after Islanders starter Ilya Sorokin stopped 32 of 35 shots in the New York victory.
The Panthers are not expecting a tired Islanders team on the other end of the ice, though.
“I mean, we want to be ready to go,” Maurice said. “I don’t think there’s any benefit to us this early in the season. When you look at their schedule, it’s their first back-to-back there’s no travel when you play up in the New York area, so almost at times, in back-to-backs early in the year, the team we play against has the advantage. Neither team has a lot of hockey on them.”
THE NEWS
Today’s game will air at 7:30 p.m. EST on Scripps Sports and Panthers Plus. It will also be available for streaming on ESPN+ for those outside of the Panthers’ broadcast territory.
For more information on how to catch this afternoon’s game, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
— Spencer Knight will get the start for the Florida Panthers tonight on Long Island.
PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Evan Rodrigues — Jesper Boqvist — A.J. Greer
Uvis Balinskis — Patrick Giles — Mackie Samoskevich
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Adam Boqvist — Nate Schmidt
Spencer Knight
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: N/A
Injured: Tomas Nosek (LTIR), Justin Sourdif (SOIR), Aleksander Barkov (lower-body), Jonah Gadjovich (back spasms)
NEW YORK ISLANDERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Simon Holmstrom — Bo Horvat — Mathew Barzal
Maxim Tsyplakov — Brock Nelson — Kyle Palmieri
Anders Lee — Jean-Gabriel Pageau — Oliver Wahlstrom
Casey Cizikas — Kyle MacLean — Liam Foudy
Alexander Romanov — Noah Dobson
Adam Pelech — Ryan Pulock
Mike Reilly — Scott Mayfield
Semyon Varlamov
Ilya Sorokin
(Islanders lines via Stefen Rosner, The Hockey News)