It’s time for another edition of NHL rumours. We’re in the dog days of August, but there’s still plenty to talk about. Training camps are slated to start in September and that means trying to figure out what they’ll have to start the season. A number of players fought through the pain in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That could mean some players might not be ready for the start of the season.<\/p>\n
One team that may have to deal with that issue is the Florida Panthers<\/a>. This edition of NHL rumours takes a look at one star player that may miss some time.<\/p>\n All NHL rumours come from the original source and are subject to change.<\/p>\n Rumour: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman took a look<\/a> at the status of Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> for the start of the 2025-26 season. Friedman said that the American forward could start the season on the injured reserve.<\/em><\/p>\n Analysis<\/em>: Tkachuk once again helped Florida win a Stanley Cup<\/a>. However, he played through pain with an injury that he may have picked up at the Four Nations Face-Off. He managed to get through the rest of the regular season and the playoffs. However, it did come at a cost.<\/p>\n He’s always been a valuable contributor, but Tkachuk was less than 100-percent<\/a> heading into and coming out of the post-season.\u00a0Friedman said that Tkachuk is likely to miss the start of the season. However, Friedman said that Tkachuk would likely be ready for the 2026 Winter Olympics<\/a> in Italy.<\/p>\n Tkachuk’s absence now leaves Panthers General Manager Bill Zito with a situation that he may have to deal with. However, Tkachuk being out of the lineup could be a blessing in disguise coming into the regular season.<\/p>\n Time is ticking until the start of the season in early October.<\/a> Teams need to get under the $95.5 million salary cap, which could lead to some difficult decisions in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n Florida is currently $3.725 million over the salary cap as of this time. There has been chatter<\/a> that someone like Evan Rodrigues<\/a> could ben on the move. Rodrigues currently makes $3 million and moving him could take some pressure off when it comes to becoming cap compliant.<\/p>\n The veteran forward has been an important part of the Panthers’ success. He’s a valuable forward that comes in with a relatively low salary cap hit. If Zito does have to trade Rodrigues, there will be no shortage of suitors in trying to acquire a Stanley Cup-winning forward.<\/p>\n However, Zito could find relief in putting Tkachuk on long-term injured reserve. His $9.5 million salary would be moved to LITR and that would give them around $6 million of space. Zito would have some time in order to find a solution when Tkachuk does return from the injured list.<\/p>\n Florida has been on a roll that last three seasons and Tkachuk has been a massive part of that. However, the team is going to likely miss one of their top players for a significant part of the early season.<\/p>\n Main photo by: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s time for another edition of NHL rumours. We’re in the dog days of August, but there’s still plenty to talk about. Training camps are slated to start in September and that means trying to figure out what they’ll have to start the season. A number of players fought through the pain in the Stanley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":468988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4547,34,4548,4321],"tags":[288,2740,7776,701,7081],"class_list":["post-473163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-panthers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-rumours","tag-bill-zito","tag-evan-rodrigues","tag-florida-panthers-rumours","tag-matthew-tkachuk","tag-winter-olympics"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473163"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473168,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473163\/revisions\/473168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}NHL Rumours<\/h2>\n
Florida Panthers Star Uncertain for Start of Season<\/h3>\n
What It Means<\/h4>\n