Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Barkov hopeful for NHL’s resumption
Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov is one of the most prolific offensive threats in the NHL. He makes nearly $6 million per year. He’s now a major shareholder of his hometown Finnish hockey team, “Tappara Tempere.”
But, after his mother’s departure four weeks ago, Barkov has spent the last month much like you and I.
“I’ve been here for one month alone, so I’ve had to learn how to cook, had to learn how to clean and stuff like that,” he said Thursday afternoon. “But so far things are going well. Obviously it’s about time — [at] 24 years old — to learn to live on your own.”
Since the league’s suspension during the
COVID-19 pandemic back in March, Barkov has been holed up in his Boca Raton home learning — and waiting. Now that the league has announced a plan to return to the ice and the Panthers have opened their facility to voluntary group workout sessions, he and his teammates are champing at the bit for hockey, with minds fixed on an eventual five-game series against the New York Islanders.
The current workouts are no real substitute for five-on-five hockey. But for now, as the team waits for league clearance to begin more formal training camps, they will suffice.
“Most of the guys, they can’t wait,”
Barkov said. “They know the situation we’re in. We know everybody’s going to handle this situation really well, try to be as safe as possible and not go anywhere.
“For me, the Stanley Cup playoffs is everything. I would not leave my bed [except to] just go to games and practices, just play in the playoffs and try to win the Stanley Cup. This is what I live for. This is what we live for as a team.
“We want to win. And we’re going to do everything it takes.”
The resumption of hockey, like most anything these days, is far from certain. As Florida becomes the epicenter for the return of sports, it has also quickly emerged as an epicenter for the coronavirus. The state reported over 5,000 cases each of the past two days, more than any other days on record.
That impact has been felt acutely in the world of sports — the Tampa Bay Lightning closed their facilities after multiple players contracted the virus, Brooks Koepka withdrew from the Travelers Championship because his caddie tested positive and the Heat’s Derrick Jones Jr. came down with coronavirus as basketball seeks to return. The list goes on. What’s become clear amid furious attempts to bring professional leagues back is that no sport can disentangle itself from the grim public health reality.
But as hockey forges ahead, Barkov remarked that the Panthers are doing their best to weather the circumstances.
“Of course there is high risk in that,” Barkov said about his concern with the rising cases. “I know some [other athletes] already tested positive, and some teams. Most of the players tested positive in other sports too.
“But just going to our rink [I see] how our medical staff and equipment staff are handling the situation and how strict they are — ‘can’t touch this, can’t touch this.’ There’s minimal contact with anybody.”
The team speaks frequently in its group chat about these topics and others. The Panthers are among the biggest beneficiaries of hockey’s expanded playoff format.
When the season was suspended, they were 2-0-1 in their last three games. The odds of a playoff berth were long, but there was some momentum building.
They’ve vowed to make the most of their chance to rectify an otherwise disappointing season.
“It’s been over three months since we played, but before the break we were playing exactly the way we [wanted to] play,” Barkov said. “We started looking good. We started playing really good hockey, playing for each other and battling for each other, and everybody doing the right thing on the ice. This is our mindset.
“When the playoffs start, we want to keep building from that.”