Panthers sign Akira Schmid to two-year contract
The last arbitration-bound contract dispute in the NHL has been settled, as the Florida Panthers have signed goalie Akira Schmid to a two-year contract that will carry a salary cap hit of $2 million per year, as first reported by Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte Friedman.
Schmid is coming off a two-year stint with the Vegas Golden Knights, where he appeared in 34 games this season for the eventual Western Conference champions. The Switzerland native went 16-10-6 with a .893 save percentage and 2.59 goals against average while handling the heaviest workload of his NHL career.
The highlight of Schmid’s young NHL career came with the New Jersey Devils during the 2022-23 season, when he posted a .922 SV% across 18 regular season appearances before delivering a sterling performance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs that season as the Devils ousted their rival New York Rangers in the first round. Schmid put up a .921 SV% over nine games played that postseason.
Schmid will form one half of a new tandem between the crease in Sunrise, as the Panthers are tasked with replacing Sergei Bobrovsky, who signed a lucrative contract in free agency to join the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The former Devil and Golden Knight will likely serve as the backup to Jacob Markstrom, who began his career in Florida and returns as a veteran after a trade with New Jersey that sent Evan Rodrigues the other way.
The Panthers, who won the Stanley Cup in both 2024 and 2025, are counting on enjoying better health this coming season after their 2025-26 campaign was derailed by a litany of injuries, most notably to captain Aleksander Barkov, who missed the entire season with a torn ACL.
In addition to overhauling the goaltending situation, general manager Bill Zito made one of the splashes of the summer when he acquired Brady Tkachuk from the Ottawa Senators for a package of draft picks in a move that united the two Tkachuk brothers and added even more skill and physicality to his team’s top six.
