One year removed from injury, Panthers’ Barkov ready to ‘compete again for something big’

Aleksander Barkov had a normal offseason in his eyes.

The Florida Panthers’ captain stayed in South Florida for a bit after the season ended and trained. And then he went back home to Finland and trained. Now, he’s back in Fort Lauderdale ahead of the season … still training.

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“Now,” Barkov said, “I’m ready for camp.”

It’s a long time coming for Barkov, whose 2025-26 season was anything but normal. Instead of being the leader on the ice for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, Barkov spent the season rehabbing. A massive knee injury during his first on-ice session of training camp last season wrecked his entire year. He could only watch as his team, which dealt with a slew of injuries of its own, limped through the season and missed the Stanley Cup playoffs entirely.

Nearly one year since his injury, Barkov and the Panthers are set to return to the ice as another season gets underway. Training camp begins Thursday at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale. The four-game preseason starts Sunday against the new Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes at Amerant Bank Arena. And the season, 84 games this year instead of 82, begins at the Hurricanes on Sept. 29.

“We can always use whatever happened the year before, and I think that’s a good year to to use as a motivation and to motivate us to be better and to bounce back and to compete again for something big,” Barkov said Tuesday to a small group of reporters. “Yeah, everyone’s been kind of waiting to get started. We all know camp is always going to be hard no matter what. It’s going to be hard physically and mentally, and we’re all kind of ready for that test.”

And the Panthers are ready to have Barkov back.

It’s hard to overstate just how important Barkov is to this Panthers team. He’s a three-time Selke Trophy winner as the league’s best defensive forward. He’s the franchise leader in goals (286), assists (496), points (782) and games played (804, tied with Aaron Ekblad after missing all of last season) while averaging more than 20 minutes per game across his career.

“Any time you’re on the ice with Barky,” forward Sam Reinhart said, “it’s a little bit different than anything else you see just with how strong and how smooth he is out there.”

They learned the hard way last season just how much he’s missed when he can’t play.

Barkov’s season came crashing down on Sept. 25, when a non-contact injury within the first half hour of his first training camp practice led to him needing surgery on the ACL and MCL in his right knee. The projected timeline of recovery at that time was seven to nine months.

Barkov tried to make a return to the Panthers despite the debilitating knee injury. He began skating again in January, joined team practices in March and traveled with the team down the stretch of the season.

“You saw it all year,” said Reinhart, who plays on Barkov’s right wing. “Just the way you’d walk in here, walk into the gym, walk into the treatment room. You’d see him progressing with injury that he had, and then how early he stepped back on the ice and was able to kind of get back up to speed. … If there’s ever someone that’s going to take advantage of a situation and get in the best shape you probably can, he’s that guy.”

But the only realistic path to him playing for the team was if they made the playoffs. It was nearly impossible he would be cleared by medical staff before then. Florida didn’t make the postseason, finishing seventh in the Atlantic Division with a 40-38-4 record and 84 points.

So instead of helping push for a third consecutive Stanley Cup championship, Barkov could only watch as his team missed the playoffs all together for the first time since 2019.

But Barkov didn’t feel any frustration in having to wait things out. He didn’t feel his patience tested. He understood the plan in place for his rehab and recovery and knew he couldn’t expedite it. He focused on what he could each day and let everything else run its course.

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“You just come to the rink, and they test you out and say what you can do today, and that’s about it,” Barkov said. “They gave me some [timeline of] what I can expect at any time of the rehab. Like, when can I skate for the first time? When can I go in full gear? When I can go with the team? That kind of stuff. I had a really good plan, so I didn’t need to jump ahead of time. I didn’t need to wait for anything. Every single week, I got to do something new, and that was exciting for me.”

What was also exciting: Barkov’s performance at the 2026 IIHF World Championship in May where he led Finland to its first gold medal at the tournament since 2022.

Barkov, just nine months removed from surgery, finished the tournament leading Finland with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) over 10 games. He also won 65.7% of his faceoffs while playing on Finland’s top line and top power-play unit.

“The toughest part was to not think about how I’m going to feel,” Barkov said. “Am I going to be able to play free without thinking about the injury? And I think once the game started, I wasn’t even thinking about it. Like my first shift or second shift, I fell behind the net, nothing happened, and I was like, ‘Nice. That’s very good news. I can just keep playing.’ Of course, adrenaline helps, too, when you’re getting ready for the game. Like, you kind of forget everything that’s going on around you. You just focus on the game. That helps, too.”

His teammates, however, were far from surprised to see how quickly he got back to top form.

“I don’t know if he would want me to share this, but he said he felt like a man amongst boys in his first practice out there, so that’s pretty cool,” defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “The fact that he had worked that hard to put himself in a position to feel that good and play that well is sick. It’s fun. It’s fun to see him do that.”

Added defenseman Gustav Forsling: “That’s Barky. Not everyone can do that. He made it look easy, but what he went through was nothing easy. He worked so hard and he’s so humble and he really took care of himself.”

Now, he’s ready to take care of the Panthers again, who are loaded up for what they hope will be a revenge tour and another deep playoff run.

In addition to Barkov’s return, Florida bolstered its forward group by trading for Brady Tkachuk, who is projected to start the season on the Panthers’ top line with Barkov and Reinhart. Everyone else from Florida’s top-nine forward group — Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand and Eetu Luostarinen — also returns, although Marchand’s availability to start the season is up in the air after recently undergoing surgery to tend to a lower-body injury. Veterans Lars Eller and Garnet Hathaway are new additions to the room who should fit fourth-line roles with Sandis Vilmanis, Cole Reinhardt, Cole Schwindt and Jonah Gadjovich also in the mix for playing time.

Forsling, Ekblad, Seth Jones and Niko Mikkola anchor the defense, with a combination of Dmitry Kulikov, Radko Gudas, Uvis Balinskis, Donovan Sebrango and Alexander Petrovic rounding out the room.

Jacob Markstrom and Akira Schmid will serve as the goaltending tandem as Florida moves on from Sergei Bobrovsky.

Barkov’s ready.

“You can’t really take anything for granted,” Barkov said. “I was really excited getting into the season last year, and then the season was pretty much over. You just have to enjoy every single chance you get to play hockey, to be with your teammates, to go to every single practice, every single game. … You’ve got to be ready to go right away.”

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