George Richards, FHN Publisher
FORT LAUDERDALE — One question some have had in the wake of Sasha Barkov being out after having knee surgery is what becomes of the captaincy of the Florida Panthers.
No one, aside from Barkov, is going to be captain of the Panthers.
Barkov, who was named the 10th captain in franchise history in 2018, will not be replaced.
And with the players the Panthers have on their team, there is no leadership vacuum with Barkov being out.
Barkov will be the first to tell you that his job as captain of the Panthers is much easier based on the kind of players on his team.
Florida has all kinds of leadership, from the lead-by-example style of Barkov to the traditional ‘rah-rah’ vocal style of a Matthew Tkachuk.
With the Panthers having won the past two Stanley Cup championships, they have quite a few players who have been there, and, done that.
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“If you have a really strong top-down hierarchy, that leadership void is huge,’’ coach Paul Maurice said after Barkov went down with a knee injury that needed surgery on Friday morning.
“But we have a much more horizontal idea in there. … Sam Reinhart doesn’t wear an ‘A,’ but he could be the captain of this team. And that’s as true today as it was before. We can talk about just about anyone in that room after that. So, when we say we’re going to share that loss, we’ll share the loss, the captaincy, all of it across the board.”
General manager Bill Zito has been careful to build a team that not only is chock full of talent, but meshes extremely well together.
The Panthers hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone outside of the organization could.
Barkov has helped set that tone, for sure.
But so have the likes of Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, Carter Verhaeghe, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Gus Forsling.
In the past few months, Florida also added Brad Marchand and Seth Jones, two players who have been looked at as leaders at their previous stops — with Marchand spending his final two seasons with the Bruins as their captain.
“You can’t replace Barky because he does so many different things on and off the ice,” Marchand said on Saturday. “One of the things I was really impressed with when I came in was, you didn’t feel like one guy led the way. You felt like everyone was very dialed in to what they had to do. Everyone was bought in, everyone did everything as a unit. That is very special and you don’t see that often where the guys are one. You’ll see where there are one or two guys who kind of lead the way, and others follow … that’s complete opposite of this group.”
Said Ekblad: “I wear an ‘A,’ but you could throw it on Benny, Marchy, Reino, go down the lineup; Bob. We all absorb it, for sure. Again, there is no replacing [Barkov], and we know that. But there is a sense of community in that room and we’re all going to have to chip away at it together.”
As far as assigned leaders go, the Panthers will likely be making some changes to their alternate captains what with both Barkov and Tkachuk out with injury.
Ekblad, who is the second-longest tenured Panther behind Barkov, wears an ‘A’ as does Tkachuk.
In past years, the Panthers have designated as many as four alternate captains with two selected for home games, and two for road games.
Maurice has not said what the Panthers plan to do this season.
With the players the Panthers have, however, there is no shortage of candidates Maurice could pick to place the ‘A’ on their jersey once the regular season kicks off.
It would not be surprising to see Marchand, the former Bruins captain, be one of them.
“It makes it easier that he’s here for sure,” Zito said. “In a unique way, it has been a short period of time, but doesn’t it feel like he has always been here? He seems like he’s part of the furniture. … Obviously his level of leadership, his commitment to the team, to the family, these are the times where that becomes even more valuable.”
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