When asked about reports of a 10-12 week recovery that surfaced Monday, Maurice said, "Do not bet your hard-earned money on that one. I know you can bet on everything these days. Hang onto your cash. Truly. If I don't know, nobody else does. That's fair."
The 31-year-old forward was injured in a 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on Oct. 1.
Barkov went down awkwardly while battling for the puck in the right corner during a power play at 8:07 of the second period. After getting up, he immediately asked for the Zamboni doors to be opened and threw his gloves down while walking to the locker room.
He was playing just his second game this season after missing all of 2025-26 because of a right knee injury he sustained on the first day of training camp. He had surgery the day after the injury to repair his MCL and ACL.
The Panthers announced Saturday that he was placed on long-term injured reserve and would see a doctor Monday.
That is all the team knows at this point, Maurice insisted.
"You're getting feathers," he said. "Sorry. You know why? Because we need a certain amount of information before we can make our best estimate, and we don't have that information. So, everybody's guessing. He's in with doctors."
The Panthers (1-0-2) visit the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN+) to conclude their season-opening four-game road trip.
They play their home opener against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.
Although Barkov was unavailable for Florida last season, he did play for Finland at the 2026 IIHF World Championship in Switzerland in May. He served as captain and had 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 10 games to help his country win the gold medal.
"It was a difficult thing to go through last year," Maurice said Saturday. "We've been through it, so we'll just deal with it. We handle our day, there's no point in looking a week out. We had a good practice (Saturday)."
