Los Angeles KingsFlorida got the news it wanted on Tuesday morning and the news it feared on Tuesday night. Aleksander Barkov, hurt in the second game of the season against San Jose, will miss six to eight weeks and does not need surgery. Paul Maurice called it "our best window." Hours later in Los Angeles, Brad Marchand crashed into the post in the second period and left without putting weight on his left leg. Florida won 2-1, but there was no update on Marchand by the time this was published.
Barkov missed all of last season with a knee injury, so the Panthers have already run this experiment once, for 82 games. That season is the best guide to what comes next, and it argues against the fix Florida has reached for first.
Maurice has moved Sam Reinhart to centre for the first time since his Buffalo days. Through three games the move has cost Florida most of Reinhart's scoring.
What did Florida look like without Barkov?
Average. Florida finished 40-38-4 with 84 points and missed the playoffs. Its all-situations expected goals were exactly even, 265.2 for and 265.2 against, and its five-on-five share was 49.3 per cent. The defending champions of 2024 and 2025 became a coin-flip team, and goaltending below its chances finished the job: 274 goals allowed on 265.2 expected.
The forwards who played centre were not the problem. Sam Bennett scored 26 goals and 58 points. Anton Lundell had 44 points in 64 games and won 51.8 per cent of his draws. What Florida lacked was the player who tilted the ice, and no centre on the roster does that.
Which combinations actually worked?
Florida's lines changed constantly, but the most-used trios at five-on-five tell a clear story.
| Florida line, 5-on-5, 2025-26 | Minutes | Goals for-against | xG share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luostarinen, Lundell, Reinhart | 310 | 13-14 | 53.5% |
| Marchand, Bennett, Verhaeghe | 200 | 12-13 | 48.0% |
| Verhaeghe, Rodrigues, Reinhart | 193 | 6-8 | 56.8% |
| M. Tkachuk, Bennett, Verhaeghe | 181 | 10-13 | 44.3% |
| Marchand, Lundell, Luostarinen | 174 | 9-7 | 46.8% |
The two lines with the best expected goals shares among the five most used both had Reinhart on the right wing. The most-used line in the whole team was Lundell centring Reinhart. That combination already exists, and it was Florida's best answer to Barkov's absence last season.
What has Reinhart at centre looked like?
Three games is a tiny sample, and Florida as a team has been good at five-on-five, taking 66.4 per cent of expected goals. But Reinhart's own numbers have collapsed in a way that is hard to put down to noise.
| Sam Reinhart, 5-on-5 | 2025-26, mostly wing | 2026-27, centre |
|---|---|---|
| Individual expected goals per 60 | 0.70 | 0.03 |
| Shots on goal | 71 in 64 games | 3 in 3 games |
| Faceoffs, all situations | 38.1% (56-91) | 31.6% (6-13) |
The 2026-27 column covers 41 five-on-five minutes before Tuesday's win in Los Angeles. Last season he created about seven tenths of an expected goal for every hour at even strength. At centre he is creating almost none.
Reinhart scored 57 goals in 2023-24 and 39 the season after, much of it alongside Barkov. Last season, without Barkov, he still scored 29 in 64 games, 10 of them at five-on-four on 12.1 expected goals. He is at his best arriving at the net, not starting plays from his own end and losing two of every three draws.
Why did Florida make the move?
Because it has more good wingers than centres. Brady Tkachuk arrived from Ottawa in June for two first-round picks in this year's draft and more. With both Tkachuks, Carter Verhaeghe and Marchand, the left side and right side are crowded. Moving Reinhart inside gets another good player into the top nine.
The case for Reinhart at centre, stated fairly
The best version of Maurice's plan goes like this. Florida's wing depth is the best it has been, Barkov's absence leaves a hole in the middle, and the team has been strong at five-on-five through three games with the new alignment. Reinhart is a smart, responsible two-way player who played centre earlier in his career, faceoffs are the least important part of the job, and a few games is not enough time to learn a position again.
The other side is the one his shot chart is making. Reinhart is Florida's most dangerous finisher, and in 41 minutes at centre he has generated almost nothing. Lundell can centre him, they were Florida's most-used line last season, and that line's numbers were good. With Marchand now hurt as well, the winger surplus that justified the move may already be shrinking.
Florida should put Lundell back between Luostarinen and Reinhart, give Bennett the top line with the Tkachuks or Verhaeghe, and keep its best goal scorer near the net until Barkov is back.
What happens next
The Panthers are 2-0-2 with Barkov out until around late November and Marchand's injury still unknown. We argued in August that Marchand's surgery made Florida's depth the big question of the season, and in September that the summer went into fixing the crease. Both points look sharper this week. Last week we also looked at how Carolina won the Cup in the one spring Florida missed.
Watch Reinhart's shot totals and the line combinations over the next week. Every injury update is on the injuries page.