LOS ANGELES – The fallout from last week’s groundbreaking agreement between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia continued Tuesday at the U.S. Open.

Although players had no details about the “framework” agreement that will create a new, for-profit entity, dubbed “NewCo” internally, that will be funded by the PIF, there continued to be plenty of handwringing about the secrecy of the deal and the Tour’s sudden change of direction.

Jon Rahm was asked Tuesday at Los Angeles Country Club what he believed is the most important unanswered question.

“It gets to a point where you want to have faith in management, and I want to have faith that this is the best thing for all of us, but it's clear that's not the consensus,” Rahm said. “The general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.”

Players were informed of the agreement with the PIF, which owns 93 percent of LIV Golf, at the same time the Tour released a public statement on the deal last Tuesday.

“I understand why they had to keep it so secret. I understand we couldn't make it through a [Player Advisory Council] meeting with more than 10 minutes after people spilling the beans right away in some article by you guys already being out there. I get the secrecy,” Rahm said. “It's just not easy as a player that's been involved, like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell. That's why we're all in a bit of a state of limbo because we don't know what's going on and how much is finalized and how much they can talk about, either.

“It's a state of uncertainty that we don't love, but at the end of the day, I'm not a business expert. I'd like to think they're going to make a better decision than I would, but I don't know. There's still too many questions to be answered.”

The agreement, which will include the DP World Tour and LIV Golf, is set to go before the Tour’s policy board for a definitive vote June 26.

Inter Miami have sounded out Jordi Alba's interest in joining the club but face competition to sign the Barcelona defender from Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and clubs in Saudi Arabia, sources have told ESPN.

Alba, 34, has reached an agreement to end his contract with Barca, which was due to expire in 2024, one year early and is looking for a new club this summer.

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Sources say Alba has not closed the door on any of the options and will make a decision after this week's UEFA Nations League finals in the Netherlands, where he is part of the Spain squad that will meet Italy in the semifinal on Thursday.

After Lionel Messi announced he would join Inter Miami last week, and with sources confirming Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets has also held talks with the MLS side, Alba is the latest Europe-based player to be approached by the South Florida team.

Sources say there have not yet been any formal negotiations and there is no offer on the table, while Miami also has to consider how to manage its three designated player spots, but Alba would be willing to listen to the team's proposal.

However, the left-back may prefer to stay in Europe with the European Championships coming up in Germany next summer and with his wife due to give birth to their third child next month.

LaLiga side Atletico and Serie A team Inter are among several interested European clubs, sources confirmed, while there are also offers on the table from Saudi Arabia.

Alba will evaluate his options with his family after the Nations League, with a decision expected to be made in the coming weeks.

Lionel Messi is making the move to MLS, following a long line of stars who found success in Europe but came stateside to add a new chapter towards the end of their careers. The Argentine legend has announced that he'll be joining Inter Miami and diving headfirst into the top flight of North American soccer.

So what awaits him in his new league?

Some peculiarities, that's for sure. While a lot about MLS is no different from what Messi has experienced in Spain and France, there are a few things about the league that are unlike anywhere else.

Playoffs!? It's all about playoffs

Right off the bat, we have a thing Messi's never really had to think about before in his career: a postseason!

Whereas most of the world -- and indeed, wherever Messi has previously played -- crowns the champion at the end of a long season that sees every team play each other home and away before handing the silverware to the club with the most points, that's not the case in MLS.

Teams play a 34-match regular season and the one with the most points after that is awarded a fan-created trophy called the Supporters' Shield -- but that is just the warmup for the pinnacle of the campaign: the MLS Cup playoffs. Many fans consider the Supporters' Shield a major trophy, while the MLS commissioner has ignored it and instead congratulated the Shield winner on clinching the "top seed" for the playoffs.

The league is split into two conferences, the East and West, and the top nine teams in each after the regular season qualify for the playoffs. Those 18 teams play what is essentially a mini-tournament, with the final two meeting in MLS Cup for the right to call themselves the league champion. That's how New York City FC finished the 2021 season in fourth in the East standings, but went on to be crowned the champion.

Some have argued that this format devalues much of the season. After all, 62% of the teams make the postseason, so how much do wins in the first few months really matter? (With 15 points at the halfway point and 17 games left, Messi's new team could still make up ground once he's in the team.) That's a fair critique, but when you get to the playoffs and you have teams fighting for the league's ultimate crown in a tournament format, the stakes are enormous and it's thrilling to watch.

Plus, there's no such thing as running away with the title like we see in other leagues -- like Messi's Barcelona did so often in LaLiga -- so you're going to be watching all the way to the end.

There's no relegation

Dropping down a division isn't something Messi needed to worry about before because let's face it -- neither Barcelona nor PSG, however disappointing, have ever come remotely close to the wrong end of the table before. Inter Miami have not been good this season, but that's OK too because MLS isn't just different at the top in how it crowns a champion. It's also very different at the bottom because there is no relegation. The league is self-contained, with no pyramid of teams below.

MLS has its teams, which are decided through owners buying their way in through franchise fees, and that's it -- those are the teams -- so if you have a terrible season and finish last it's nothing more than an embarrassment. You get to start the following year on equal footing with everyone else in the league. Austin FC, for instance, finished second-last in 2021 and then in 2022 ended up second place in the West and reached the playoff semifinals.

Ask any American soccer fan and they'll tell you how promotion and relegation would make things more interesting at the bottom, penalize incompetent or uncaring clubs and help player development by further incentivizing clubs in the lower leagues. It's not a fresh complaint, but club owners pay hundreds of millions of dollars for new teams in part because they know that once they get into MLS, they're there to stay. No amount of ineptitude or poor performances will change that.

The season runs from February to December -- get your scarves and mittens

Messi's played just about everywhere on earth at this point, but remember the cliche about wanting to see him do it on a rainy midweek night in Stoke, just to see if he could handle the brutal conditions and defending? That's nothing compared to what awaits in North America.

Most of the world begins its seasons in August and plays until the end of May before taking the summer off. That's not the case in MLS, where the season is built specifically so the league can play through the summer.

While large parts of North America suffer through wind and bitter cold in the winter, the summer is a time to sit outside, have some beverages and often take in a sport. Baseball has built a multibillion-dollar industry in large part on those excellent vibes. When MLS launched, the leaders asked themselves: "Do we want to try to lure people to this outdoor sport every weekend in cold and rain or snow, or do we want to offer them sun and warmth?" The league opted not to follow the calendar widely used in Europe, tailoring its seasons to the U.S. climate.

But just because the league plays through the summer doesn't mean weather isn't a problem. A lot of cities in North America get very hot and humid; when Wayne Rooney signed with D.C. United in 2018, he felt it in a bad way. He said: "I was just so hot, I was thinking, 'What am I doing?'"

It's not only the heat that can be a problem. After all, the bulk of the season is in the summer but it starts and finishes in the winter.

It was 18 degrees Fahrenheit when the Portland Timbers and Colorado Rapids kicked off an early-season 2019 game in a field blanketed by snow and the temperature kept plummeting so that by the end of it, as one player put it: "My hands were frozen. I couldn't feel my fingertips or my toes."

In 2013, the league title was determined in an MLS Cup match that kicked off in 20-degree weather with severe winds that had some reporters' keyboards in the open-air press box stuck frozen.

It's a very big league -- literally -- and the travel can be brutal

The league spans most of a continent. When Messi and Inter Miami go to play the Vancouver Whitecaps, they'll be flying 2,801 miles, or farther than Barcelona to Baku, Azerbaijan. The flight to western Canada will take about seven hours from Miami. Compare that with Messi's longest trips in LaLiga -- an hour and half to Sevilla or two hours to face Celta Vigo. Ligue 1 was even more compact: Paris to either Toulouse or Nice could be done in less than 90 minutes.

Oh, and it's not out of the question that the flight could be commercial. When he played for D.C. United, Rooney once tweeted: "Looking forward to a 12 hour travel day which could be done in 6 but hey this is mls."

MLS has officially eased its restrictions on charter flights in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the league to do away with commercial flights entirely, allowing teams to charter every flight for the 2023 season. But if the league wants to start enforcing caps on charter flights again, it could. Does Messi want an aisle or window seat?

Not all venues are quite to the level of Spotify Camp Nou or Parc des Princes

As a global star suiting up for two of the biggest teams around, Messi is used to pristine playing surfaces in front of gigantic, sell-out crowds. He'll find some of that in the U.S., but it will also be a rude awakening on other away trips.

Some MLS teams play in giant, state-of-the-art, multibillion-dollar stadiums built to host NFL teams like Atlanta United do in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Most play in nice, purpose-built stadiums that seat 18,000 to 30,000 people, have a roof and look like the soccer stadiums you'll find anywhere in the world.

But there are some, ahem, exceptions. New York City FC plays at Yankee Stadium, a baseball stadium that is awkward at best for soccer, except for when they play at Citi Field, a different baseball stadium that is equally awkward for soccer. And when they can't play in either of those, they play in their rival's home, Red Bull Arena, which is pretty funny. (Imagine Man United needing to borrow Man City's stadium because of a scheduling conflict.)

NYCFC has proposed a new stadium to be built for the 2027 season in Queens, New York, but Messi's contract with Miami is reportedly only for 2½ years, so he'll probably be playing in a baseball stadium while he's in MLS.

Even the place Messi will call home, DRV PNK Stadium, is unusual. It's not even in Miami -- it's in Fort Lauderdale, about a 40-minute drive from the city without traffic -- and it is entirely temporary, built as a modular venue that was designed to be disassembled. It is expected to be Inter Miami's home only until the club is finished building the 25,000-seat Miami Freedom Park, planned for 2025.

Artificial turf is a reality

Even some of the amazing venues around MLS aren't necessarily the best for players. The aforementioned Mercedes-Benz Stadium has an artificial turf surface, as do five other stadiums in the league. The turf makes it easier to shift between soccer and American football, concerts and other events, often with sliding/retractable or modular playing surfaces that can be swapped around depending on what's being hosted there.

Players do not enjoy the artificial turf, though, claiming it is harder on their bodies and makes them more susceptible to injury -- and European stars who didn't need to play on artificial turf previously have especially taken exception. Zlatan Ibrahimovic raged against it with the LA Galaxy, saying he'd only play on it if it was "life or death," and Thierry Henry famously declined to play in nearly every game on a non-grass surface when he was part of the New York Red Bulls.

Superstars David Beckham and Robbie Keane were vocal about the scourge of fake turf on LA Galaxy away trips. Meanwhile, solutions against artificial surfaces are also flawed: Messi had an injury scare of his own in 2015 when Argentina played a friendly against Mexico at the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium. The stadium's owners obliged requests for real grass to be laid over the artificial, which was almost worse when Messi slipped and twisted his knee.

Over the years, the number of venues featuring natural grass has increased, but for the foreseeable future it appears artificial turf in MLS is here to stay.

Less-than-ideal surfaces are not limited to artificial turf, by the way. The field at Yankee Stadium is too small to fit a regulation pitch and the grass that gets laid over the dirt baseball infield makes for some funny bounces and more challenging close control in possession. Messi is the king with the ball at his feet, but expect the playing surfaces to be a fun variable.

The U.S. Open Cup takes teams to some interesting locales

Artificial turf or a world-class baseball stadium pale in comparison to the strange venues MLS teams find themselves in when they play in the U.S. Open Cup.

The tournament, which was founded in 1914 and is the country's oldest soccer competition, sees teams in the top flight playing teams down several divisions, including semi-pro clubs. That means games against clubs many people have never heard of, potentially in cities that are unknown to most.

This season, Minnesota United played Detroit City at Keyworth Stadium, which is owned by Hamtramck Public Schools and hosts high school games. The San Jose Earthquakes played Monterey Bay FC at Cardinale Stadium, a 6,000-seat venue at Cal State University. And the Pittsburgh Riverhounds and Birmingham Legion made dream runs to the quarterfinals.

Other teams that have played against MLS competition include the Tampa Bay Rowdies, who play in a defunct baseball stadium, and the Harrisburg City Islanders, who play in a current minor league baseball stadium. Christos FC, an amateur team representing Christos Discount Liquors in Maryland, didn't get to host D.C. United when they met a few years back, but that would've been even more memorable.

So, if you think seeing Messi play in a borrowed baseball stadium is bizarre, just wait and see whether he plays a U.S. Open Cup match in a baseball stadium that is, well, not major league.

Say hello to the All-Star Game

If Messi's arrived in the U.S. in time, will he get picked? It's hard to think that he wouldn't. After all the All-Star Game is an American sports staple, a midseason exhibition game that features the best players in a good-natured contest that's more about the celebrity and parties as anything else.

MLS has an All-Star Game of its own, and the format is usually a team of the best MLS players taking on a team from abroad. Sometimes the opposing team is a European club on their preseason tour, like this year when Arsenal will play in the All-Star Game in Washington, D.C., and sometimes it's an all-star team from Mexico's Liga MX.

The gist of the game is to show off the league's best players, some of whom are voted onto the team by fans. But the players don't always want be there, to the extent that the league instituted a one-game ban for any non-injured players who skip it. Zlatan was once slapped with a suspension under the rule, telling reporters at the time: "It think it is ridiculous, but yeah, no comments. They do whatever they want. I come from a different world, I come from the real world."

The MLS commissioner also gets to name some players to the All-Star team, and he likes to make sure the league's biggest stars are there. In 2015, that meant choosing Steven Gerrard, despite the fact that he had just joined the LA Galaxy weeks earlier and had barely played. It also meant featuring Frank Lampard, who hadn't even played for New York City FC yet, so the All-Star Game was technically his MLS debut.

Maybe Messi will make his MLS debut at this year's game on July 19?

There are a lot of complicated roster rules with silly acronyms

The Argentina star is used to playing with teammates from all over the world and, generally speaking, the highest caliber of players given where he's been in Barcelona and Paris. Those clubs could acquire whomever they wanted -- it's up to you whether you see that as a good or a bad thing -- while being mindful of UEFA's Financial Fair play rules, but Messi will find there's no such open market in MLS.

The closest thing that European soccer has to spending rules is that they can't spend so much more than they make, but in his new league, the rules are much more stringent and convoluted.

For a start, MLS has a salary cap that places a maximum amount clubs can spend on their rosters. Sounds straightforward, right? Not so fast. There are a lot of exceptions.

There are Designated Players, which essentially allow a team to sign up to three players whose pay is not fully counted against the salary cap. The rule was created so the LA Galaxy could sign David Beckham and has since been used to sign both big name stars like Messi now, or bright young talents like Miguel Almíron, who starred at Atlanta United before being transferred for a big profit to Newcastle United.

There's also so-called Homegrown Players, who come through clubs' academies. They don't count against the salary cap.

And then there are the acronyms, GAM and TAM, which you should get used to hearing if you want to follow MLS trades. (Oh yeah, in MLS, players are constantly traded to other teams in the league, which is unusual in European soccer but common in American sports. Transfers in and out of MLS are common too, but from team-to-team, player swaps or trades for GAM and TAM are the norm.)

GAM is General Allocation Money and TAM is Targeted Allocation Money, which are doled out to teams annually and can be traded among teams to essentially create extra money that raise each team's salary cap. Make sense? Don't worry if it doesn't. Even some people who work for clubs barely understand every roster mechanism. Messi's new team, Inter Miami, was once fined a league-record $2 million for violating these rules.

This might be a good time to explain that MLS is a single-entity league, meaning all the team owners are technically investors in the league together. Player contracts are centrally executed by the league itself, not individual teams, which is why the league is in the position to "allocate" money to teams through these roster rules.

While teams within LaLiga and Ligue 1 compete directly with one another for players, MLS runs the show and makes sure that doesn't happen. That's why Messi's negotiations to join Inter Miami reportedly took place at the league-level, including a cut of revenue from the league's streaming packages.

Hopefully he's understanding that his side will have to be more creative in how they build around him given all the rules and regulations.

Journalists get access to the locker rooms

In much of the world, journalists get to ask players questions at a news conference or maybe a mixed zone, which is a designated area players walk through to and from the locker room. In MLS, keeping with American sport standards, journalists get to walk straight into locker rooms after games and interview anyone they choose. In fact, the league mandates locker rooms be open for such media access.

When Josef Martinez joined Atlanta United after stints in Europe and South America, he found the practice difficult to adjust to, saying: "Honestly, it's very strange. I feel that there's a certain level of respect that's lost when it comes to the intimacy of the team, the group." Teammate González Pírez agreed, saying that in Argentina, "not even the coaches have access to the locker room" and "it's a sacred place."

So if Messi just scored a hat trick, or maybe had a difficult game and is frustrated and bruised, he might be greeted by journalists waiting at his locker expecting him answer questions. Messi has done just about everything a soccer player can do, but that will be a new one for him.

Welcome to MLS, Leo!

Free agent running back Dalvin Cook said Tuesday he's in no rush to sign with a new team after being released by the Minnesota Vikings last week.

Appearing on "The Rich Eisen Show," Cook said he will prioritize "fit for me and my family" and an organization that "values" him when he does pick a new team.

"My shoulder is feeling great. So, it's like a waiting game right now at this point. Just trying to find that right situation, and I don't think it's a rush or anything," Cook, who had surgery in February to repair a torn labrum, said.

He added: "I want somebody who values Dalvin Cook. I want somebody that wants me to be there and give me the ball. I just want to go into the right situation so I can go help somebody win."

Cook, who was released on Friday, said it's been "crazy" when asked if people around the league had already reached out to him.

"I play Madden a lot, and I do create a GM in Madden with my son, so we've been playing and stuff like that. Going through this process in real life it kind of feels like a creative game to me," he said. "It's funny, man. It's an exciting step in my life and a lot of people have reached out to me this past week. Just to reach out and see what I was thinking but there's a lot of people reaching out."

Cook, who turns 28 on Aug. 10, managed to start every game in 2022 for the first time in his career, even after separating his shoulder in Week 3. But he finished with an average of 17.8 touches and 86 yards from scrimmage per game in coach Kevin O'Connell's new scheme -- both the lowest since he became a full-time player in 2019.

He did knock off two of the six longest runs of his career in 2022: a 53-yard score in Week 6 against the Miami Dolphins and an 81-yard touchdown in Week 10 against the Buffalo Bills. On the latter, he recorded a top speed of 21.68 mph, according to NFL Next Gen Stats, the seventh-fastest speed of any ball carrier in 2022.

He rushed for 1,173 yards last season -- the fourth straight year he has rushed for more than 1,000 yards -- en route to his fourth consecutive Pro Bowl selection.

Despite being released, Cook said Tuesday he has "a lot of love for Minnesota."

"They brought a kid in that didn't know what to expect and they embraced me," he said.

"I'm looking forward to this next step in my life and it's going to be fun. Whoever gets Dalvin Cook, they know what they are getting. That's just plain and simple. You know what you are getting out of me, and I'm going to be a great team player, great teammate, great person in the locker room. I'm just ready to go run the rock and help somebody win games."

ESPN's Kevin Seifert contributed to this report.

Nineteen players have received invitations to attend the 2023 NBA draft and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN.

Victor Wembanyama, Brandon Miller, Scoot Henderson, Amen Thompson, Ausar Thompson, Cameron Whitmore, Jarace Walker, Anthony Black, Taylor Hendricks and Gradey Dick received the first batch of 10 invites this past weekend, followed by Bilal Coulibaly, Cason Wallace, Nick Smith, Dereck Lively II, Kobe Bufkin, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jett Howard, Jordan Hawkins and Keyonte George on Tuesday.

All 19 players invited are projected among the top 19 prospects in the ESPN Top 100 ranking.

Four or five more players are expected to still receive invites in the coming days, sources told ESPN.

The green room is a staging area in front of the NBA draft podium where players, families and agents await commissioner Adam Silver to call a player's name upon selection.

This year, players will be allowed to invite ten people with them to sit at their individual tables, up from five in years past.

The process of deciding whom to invite to the NBA draft involves communication with presidents or general managers of teams picking throughout the first round. Teams are asked to vote on the top 25 players they expect to hear their names called first. This is to ensure players aren't sitting for very long before a national television audience as the second round approaches.

Receiving an invitation is considered a positive sign for a player's draft stock, although there have been instances in the past of prospects falling to the second round while sitting in the green room -- such as Bol Bol, Deyonta Davis, Nic Claxton, Maciej Lampe, Rashard Lewis and others.

Jaden Hardy was selected No. 37 last year despite being one of 25 players invited to the green room.

Los Angeles Angels infielder Brandon Drury was suspended Tuesday for one game and fined an undisclosed amount for making contact with an umpire Monday night. Drury will appeal the suspension.

The incident occurred in the top of the 10th inning against the Texas Rangers. Drury was called out on strikes and proceeded to argue with home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus, making contact in the process, according to Major League Baseball.

Drury was ejected. He went 0-for-5 before departing the 12-inning game, a 9-6 Angels win.

Drury, 30, is batting .252 with 10 home runs and 30 RBIs. He has played in 61 games, including 58 starts, this season, his first with the Angels after finishing last season with the San Diego Padres.

He will be able to play against the Rangers on Tuesday, as long as the appeal process is still ongoing.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

NEW YORK -- Anthony Volpe may be struggling, but Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner made clear that the shortstop's not going anywhere.

Speaking at MLB headquarters ahead of the owners meetings, Steinbrenner said the team has had "zero conversations" about sending Volpe down to the minor leagues despite the 22-year old struggling at the plate, hitting .186/.260/.345 with nine homers and 1.0 bWAR in 67 games.

"I told Anthony at the end of spring training, 'I said you were starting shortstop of the New York Yankees,'" Steinbrenner said. "'This isn't a three-week trial. So you're going to be that through the ups and through the potential downs, and there probably will be downs.'"

In recent weeks, Volpe has shown signs of frustration, nearly slamming his bat after stranding the tying run on third to end Sunday night's 3-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox. While Volpe has struggled hitting all year, he has begun struggling with the glove as well, tallying three outs below average, ranking among the worst defenders at the position.

Parts of the fan base are clamoring for infield prospect Oswald Peraza, who is having a strong season in Triple-A, hitting .311 with 10 home runs, 21 RBIs, 21 runs and a .980 OPS with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. While Peraza continues flourishing in the minor leagues, Steinbrenner expressed his faith Volpe will turn things around.

"Well you never know, but right now [Peraza's] at Triple-A. He's having a good year," Steinbrenner said. "We'll see. I wasn't sure at the beginning of the season that either one of them would be starting for us. I knew they were coming and I knew they were coming strong, but I don't believe I was ever out there saying it with the plan to have both of them playing at the beginning of 2023."

With the trade deadline nearly a month away, Steinbrenner said the Yankees will be looking to add, but did not specify whether they prioritized pitching or hitting, given the team's injury situation with outfielders Aaron Judge and Harrison Bader and pitcher Carlos Rodon all on the injured list.

"I'm not trying to decoy, but I mean we still got a ways to go to the trade deadline," Steinbrenner said. "We've got to see when Rodon comes back. Right now he, he's on schedule; everything's looking good. We got to see if [Luis Severino] stays healthy. So that's a question for four weeks from now."

Steinbrenner said last year's trade deadline -- when the team acquired starter Frankie Montas, outfielders Bader and Andrew Benintendi and relievers Lou Trivino and Scott Effross -- did not work out as well as they hoped but would not have any impact on the team's aggressiveness at this year's deadline.

"No, it hasn't worked out. But again, our process, we're pretty thorough, and we talked to a lot of people," Steinbrenner said. "With pitchers, you're always going to take a chance on injuries, but we just felt that we needed to make those moves to get us over the hump."

LAS VEGAS -- Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice has decided on whether injured star Matthew Tkachuk will play in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. He just didn't want to share his decision Tuesday morning.

Maurice said Tkachuk's status would be revealed right before puck drop in Las Vegas, where Florida faces elimination.

The Panthers trail the Golden Knights 3-1 in the Stanley Cup Final. Tkachuk leads the Panthers in goals (11) and points (24). He has been their most valuable forward in the playoffs with four game-winning goals -- three of them coming in overtime.

Tkachuk was limited to just 16 minutes, 40 seconds of ice time in the Panthers' Game 4 loss. Although he managed four shots on goal, he was clearly laboring with what appeared to be an upper-body injury. He skated only four shifts during the third period.

Maurice said that if Tkachuk does play, "there would be no limit at the start of the game. But that would be true of any player that was dealing with [an injury]."

Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said Tkachuk's absence would be felt in a must-win game.

"He's a top player in this league. He's a huge player for our team. No matter what, I think everyone has to step up a little bit and play a little better than we've been," he said.

Panthers players said if Tkachuk can't go, or if he's limited, they'll be ready to answer the call in Game 5.

"We've been shorthanded a lot this year with big guys being in and out of the lineup and it's just an opportunity for other guys to step up and take a bigger role, be more of an impact. So that shouldn't be an issue," said center Sam Bennett, Tkachuk's linemate.

Eric Staal, the Panthers' veteran center, said the team would remain confident with someone as important as Tkachuk out.

"We grind it all year. We won some key games at key times with important pieces out of our lineup. So however we look tomorrow, I know we'll have confidence in who we are and the guys that are out there," said Staal.

Florida has already rallied once from a 3-1 series deficit this postseason, having overcome that disadvantage in their shocking first-round upset of the Boston Bruins.