It’s having a significant impact on tonight’s upcoming game in Minnesota.

The Florida Panthers have announced that captain Aleksander Barkov is a game time decision ahead of tonight’s contest against the Wild in Minnesota.

The team also confirmed that top forward Sam Bennett will not play because of illness. According to Jameson Olive, Barkov and Bennett got sick in Edmonton, but the later was feeling good enough to take part in the game against the Oilers.

“He was significantly under the weather in the Edmonton game [6-5 win Monday], but knew that Barkov couldn’t play so kind of gutted it out for us,” head coach Paul Maurice said. “But the cost of that probably is that he doesn’t play tonight. We’ve got to get him rested.”

Now the question is whether other Panthers’ players are feeling sick and who else could be missing from the lineup in the coming days ahead of the Holiday break.

Let’s hope the nasty illness settles down, the players can rest up during the break and get back on track for the second half of the 2024-25 season.