Dave Hyde: Is missing playoffs better than losing in final for limping Panthers?

No doubt missing the playoffs allows them to rest their bodies and minds in a manner they haven’t done the previous three summers. Some already have rested enough, though.

“Yes!” Barkov said when asked he was looking forward to playing for Finland in the World Championships.

Several Panthers will play in the tournament, meaning their summer vacations won’t be completely restful. The team is fine with that, too, even encouraging it as long as the players are fully healthy, general manager Bill Zito said.

It’s Zito on stage now. Everything changed for the Panthers went he came in the door nearly six years ago. He thinks outside the rink, like Tuesday, when he said everyone repeats the cliché of “Two plus two equaling four.’

“Why didn’t you just say, ‘Five minus one?’ ” he asked.

Zito might have a top-10 draft pick, depending on how a few things break. Or he might not have one at all with it lost to Chicago. Regardless, his big decision is goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who is a free agent. Barkov spoke for the players, and fans, when saying, “Everyone in South Florida wants him back.”

Bobrovsky also is 38 in September and had a career-low .877-save percentage this season. So the heavyweight question is if he can carry this team to another Stanley Cup in the way a goalie must at times. And, if not him, then who? Or maybe bring Bobrovsky and another goalie in?

Somewhere in there is the five-minus-one answer Zito must find. Win or learn. That’s the mantra this team adopted from Maurice. Zito was asked what they learned this messy season. He said he’s thinking on it.

“Most of the answer, I haven’t learned,’’ he said.

Maurice was asked something simpler: Was this a lost season?

“That will depend on how we handle it,’’ Maurice said.

He noticed somewhere in March he disliked how the Panthers played. He understood why it happened with so many injured regulars and minor-league fill-ins. He also made a note to, “take care of that in training camp,’’ he said.

The two-time champs will be healthy then. And hungry. This odd year will turn to motivational fuel by then, like water to wine. It was odd right to these first day of summer’s interviews, which weren’t downcast or uncertain about the future in the manner of, say, the Miami Heat across town.

Little went right this Panthers season. But it was easy to still see why it went so right the previous two years. Maybe this season’s eulogy was best said by Detroit coach Todd McLellan after the Panthers won the season finale for both teams 8-1. He was furious about his team’s effort.

“Both teams came in with nothing on the line, and you could see their championship pedigree,’’ McLellan said. “So, I’m going to compliment the Panthers. That pedigree runs throughout their organization. They came and they played, and it meant something.”

Until next year.