- Paul Maurice says Brad Marchand will spend all of October rehabbing from offseason surgery
- That sidelines the 38-year-old for at least Florida’s first 14 games of the season
- Read below for Maurice’s full explanation and the Jonah Gadjovich update
Brad Marchand is not coming back anytime soon.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice put a calendar on it Thursday after the first day of training camp, saying the 38-year-old winger will spend the entire month of October rehabbing from offseason surgery. Florida opens Sept. 29 in Carolina, so that wipes out at least the first 14 games.
Beat writer George Richards had it from the room:
Maurice was asked how long the recovery actually runs.
“He’s going to take the month of October for rehab. That may mean he’s ready to play right at the end of it. That may mean he needs a short period of time, assuming no setbacks. But we’re planning on rehabbing for October.”
Watch Maurice walk through both injuries:
General manager Bill Zito was fuzzier about it a day earlier, saying only that he expected Marchand back early in the season and that he was not worried. Maurice gave it a month.
The winger announced the surgery himself in mid-August, in a video explaining why he had to pull out of Zdeno Chara’s charity game in Slovakia. Florida still has not said what the procedure was for.
A lower-body issue dogged him for most of last season, and he missed a career-high 30 games before getting shut down in early March once it was clear the Panthers were not making the playoffs.
He produced when he was in. Marchand put up 27 goals and 27 assists in 52 games, the only Florida skater to average a point per game while playing at least half the schedule.
Marchand was on the ice Thursday, just not in either of the two camp groups. His skate came alongside Jonah Gadjovich, whose situation is murkier.
Gadjovich played 10 games last season before neck surgery ended his year. Maurice talked about where that one stands:
“There’s a couple of things that we’re trying to get sorted out. Clearly, it’s been a long-term issue for us and it hasn’t resolved, so we’re still looking at different options and searching for some answers on this to see if we can get him back playing. He’s skating, as you saw, so we’re not concerned with that. But we’ll list him as out indefinitely.”
Here’s the full Day 1 media availability:
Florida’s home opener is Oct. 10 against Minnesota, and Marchand will watch that one. The best case under Maurice’s timeline puts him in the lineup in the final days of the month, in year two of a six-year contract carrying a $5.25 million cap hit.
