- Brad Marchand says he is probably five to six weeks from returning from his left knee injury
- That points to a December comeback, later than the three weeks Paul Maurice floated last week
- Read below for the injury video, Aleksander Barkov’s timeline and a Marchand joke about the new Panthers plane
Brad Marchand won’t be back in the Panthers lineup this month.
Marchand was asked Thursday when he might return from his left knee injury, and he gave a range that lands in December. He spoke at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where the Panthers and JetBlue unveiled a team-themed Airbus A320.
“I can’t say it’s this month, but probably within five weeks, six weeks,” Marchand said.
That is slower than the last public timeline. Florida announced Oct. 9 that he would miss six weeks, and Maurice said last week Marchand could be back in as few as three. Marchand has been skating for more than a week.
He got hurt Oct. 6 in Los Angeles while driving the net against the Kings, and it looked bad in real time. Check out the play that sent him to the room:
Marchand talked about how he felt when he went down. He is 38 and in his 18th NHL season, and he had never hurt his knee before.
“The injury could have been so much worse,” Marchand said. “I didn’t know what to think when I went down. I thought it could be a career-ending type of thing, a season-ending thing.”
He added that he has never been so happy to be out for this long, given what he feared at first.
Florida is also still without captain Aleksander Barkov, who hurt his own left knee Oct. 1 against the Sharks. We went through his six-to-eight-week timeline last week. Barkov and Marchand have been skating together, along with Jonah Gadjovich, and Maurice said the next step is getting them back into the main practice group.
Barkov had no new timeline Thursday. He was asked about skating alongside Marchand, a longtime Bruins rival until the March 2025 trade to Florida.
“Hopefully, soon, both of us will be back,” Barkov said. “I like getting to know him better. I didn’t think I would ever say that.”
Marchand also signed the new plane, and he had a joke about where it was headed. Here’s Marchand signing it:
The Panthers are 9-5-2 and visit the Capitals on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET without either of them. Marchand’s original six-week injury news looks like the optimistic end of the range now.
