Would the Florida Panthers end Aleksander Barkov's season?

The NHL trade deadline is on Friday, March 6 and Bill Zito has a decision

Aleksander Barkov during the third period against the Edmonton Oilers in game four of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images / Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Injuries have plagued the Florida Panthers for the entirety of the 2025-26 NHL season. It's why the defending back-to-back champions are struggling with roughly a quarter of the season to play. 

No injury has been more detrimental to the Panthers than the one suffered by captain Aleksander Barkov, who has been sidelined all season after having surgery in September to repair a torn ACL and MCL.

With 25 games remaining on the regular season schedule, Florida is on the outside looking in, sitting eight points back of the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. 

Not having their three-time Selke Trophy winning captain has hurt, and an important decision regarding his future for this season is looming.  

Unlike previous years, the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs will see teams operating under a salary cap. The 18 skaters and two goaltenders dressed for every playoff game will have to fit within the cap. 

Barkov makes $10M a year. If we were using last season’s playoff rules, they could have put him on Long-Term Injured-Reserve (LTIR), received all $10M of his salary back in cap relief — which could be used to acquire other players — then activated a healthy Barkov in the postseason, while still being over the cap.

That can’t happen this year. 

Instead, the only way Florida would get Barkov’s full $10M cap hit back is if they put him on Season Ending LTIR (SELTIR), which would make the Panthers captain ineligible to play for the rest of the season, including playoffs. 

So, with the NHL trade deadline less than two weeks away on Friday, March 6, the Panthers are ready for all options, including one they don’t want to make: shutting down Barkov for the year. 

”There’s any number of scenarios that can present themselves,” Panthers General Manager Bill Zito said Tuesday when asked if the team would think about putting Barkov on SELTIR.  “You could have one where you want to preserve his (Barkov’s) ability to play in the playoffs. There’s a scenario in which it’s so far away (to make the playoffs), ‘I just don’t think we can do it’, in which case it doesn’t really matter — you could use that cap space. There’s one in which he’s ready to go sooner than you thought — I don’t think that [scenario] is real — I’m kind of making that one up. 

“We just have to be poised to make decisions for each of the fact patterns that are presented to us, and we will be. “

- Bill Zito

Barkov has been skating for the past two months, though none of them have been full team practices. There’s not a concrete time for when he would be fit to return. 

Some Aleksander Barkov skating/individual drill footage for your viewing pleasure on this Tuesday morning, #FlaPanthers fans pic.twitter.com/H2C1bWz0zf

— Jordan McPherson (@J_McPherson1126) February 24, 2026

The original estimated timeline for his recovery was 7-9 months. It’s been almost five months since he had surgery on Sept 26.

“Obviously it goes without saying that [Barkov’s] a considerable addition to make to any team. So the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned,” Zito said when speaking about a potential Barkov return. 

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