There are some teams coming out of the Olympics who have some injury concerns to deal with in the coming days before the NHL Trade Deadline. That isn’t the case for the Chicago Blackhawks; Teuvo Teräväinen made it thru the tournament healthy as far as we know. But one situation might impact their plans this coming summer.
The Los Angeles Kings are going to have to replace Kevin Fiala for the rest of this season. There are some questions about the status Mikko Rantanen after he missed Finland’s medal game that the Dallas Stars are going to need to answer. And Josh Morrissey missed games for Canada in the Olympics because of an injury that could hurt the Winnipeg Jets.
The teams in the gold medal game played guys who might not have been 100 percent. And they happen to be NHL teammates — with the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn ImagesOn the Daily Faceoff Rundown podcast over the weekend, Jeff Marek asked an interesting question:
“I wonder about the health of Brad Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk,” Marek said. “There were times in this Olympic tournament where I wondered… is [Marchand] playing like a guy that knows that this is the last hockey he’s going to play this season?”
If the Panthers need to sit either/both of those guys down for any amount of time down the stretch, their chances of making the playoffs go down significantly — even if they can somehow get their captain, Aleksander Barkov, back from the knee injury he suffered on the first day of training camp.
Which begs the question: will Florida GM Bill Zito chalk this year up as a loss, sell modestly at the deadline and look to a fully healthy 2026-27? Or will he try to patch together a roster that gets them back into the postseason and buys them enough time to get Barkov, Marchand and Tkachuk into the roster to try to three-peat?
This is all pure speculation right now, but the Panthers are in an interesting situation. They’re currently out of a playoff spot and would occupy the 10th spot in the NHL Draft Lottery. That’s significant, of course, because we learned recently that the first-round pick they traded to the Blackhawks in the Seth Jones deal is top-ten protected.
If the Panthers wind up with a pick inside the top ten after the draft lottery, the Blackhawks would receive their first-round pick with no protections in 2027. That would then slide the pick the Panthers traded to Boston for Marchand to 2028, and so on. Good times.
We’ll find out soon what the health situations are for many more Olympians as they come back to their NHL clubs. And some of those decisions will have a significant impact on their respective front office’s decisions in the coming days before the trade deadline. Florida is now one to watch even more for Blackhawks fans.
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