Barkov and Marchand are packing for the road trip, not playing on it

Barkov and Marchand are getting on the plane to Washington, Boston and Columbus. They aren't getting in the lineup, and that's the right call. Paul Maurice is bringing them along for repetitions, not games, and this team has earned the patience to wait for both of them.

Here's the detail that explains the entire season so far. By our count, Barkov and Marchand haven't dressed in the same regular-season game yet.

The captain went down with a left knee injury in a board battle in San Jose on Oct. 1. Marchand's left knee gave way on Oct. 6 in Los Angeles when Brandt Clarke pulled him down. Each played two of the first four games, and Florida has been somebody else's team ever since.

Why they're on the trip

Maurice laid out the timeline, and both players were originally given six to eight weeks. "Eight weeks would put him at December 6th, so he's in that range," he said of Marchand. On Barkov: "He might be ahead of eight weeks, but it's still six-to-eight weeks."

Then he gave the real reason for the travel. "We won't practice again until the nineteenth of November, so they need to start getting into some morning skates for us," Maurice said. Florida plays at Washington at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, at Boston at 1 p.m. Sunday, and at Columbus on Tuesday night.

No practice ice for almost two weeks means the morning skate is the only place two guys coming off knee injuries can get hit, turn hard and feel a real pass. So they ride along with the team.

Maurice likes the schedule, too. "I'd take a back-to-back on the road in the afternoon all day long," he said. Afternoon games get the boys to the hotel at a reasonable hour instead of two in the morning, and recovery matters more than ever with this many minutes redistributed.

There's one small, painful irony in the itinerary. Marchand rides into Boston on Sunday and doesn't get to play. That's not a homecoming. That's a layover.

Lineup watch

The cats are 9-5-2, and 7-5 by our count since Oct. 10, the first game both were out. That's not a team treading water; it's a team that found other answers while its two most important forwards were in the training room.

• Seth Jones is eating 24.8 minutes a night with 19 points, per NHL data. He's the reason the defensive structure hasn't cracked.
• Sam Reinhart has nine goals and a five-game point streak. Carter Verhaeghe has nine goals and his own five-game run.
• Anton Lundell is the one paying the bill. He's at 17.7 minutes with six points, carrying the extra load down the middle. When Barkov comes back, Lundell slides back into his own role, and the whole lineup gets a little easier to coach.

Barkov is a two-way center who changes what the other team can do with its top line. You don't replace that kind of player, you survive without him, and Florida has done exactly that.

The call

Barkov plays first, before Dec. 1, and the first week after practice resumes on the 19th is the window. Marchand returns during the first week of December, exactly on Maurice's eight-week calculation.

Pabs' read: Don't rush either of them. This team bought itself time in October, so spend it on getting both knees right.