- Panthers acquire goalie Akira Schmid from Vegas for a 2028 third-round pick
- Schmid, 26, went 16-10-6 with a .893 save percentage in 34 games for the Golden Knights this season
- Read below for what the move means for Florida’s wide-open crease
Bill Zito went out and grabbed himself a goalie.
The Panthers acquired netminder Akira Schmid from the Golden Knights on Monday in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft, both teams announced.
Florida didn’t give up much, and that fits the profile. Schmid is a 26-year-old still sorting out who he is in the league. He went 16-10-6 with a 2.59 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage in 34 games for Vegas this season, then watched the playoffs from the bench as the Golden Knights fell to Carolina in six games in the Final.
Zito liked what the goalie brings anyway. The Panthers GM spoke about the addition in the team’s release:
“Akira is a talented and athletic goaltender who has shown poise in high-pressure moments. We are excited to welcome him to our organization.”
The fit is easy to see for a team staring at an empty crease. Sergei Bobrovsky, Daniil Tarasov, and Louis Domingue are all set to hit unrestricted free agency on Wednesday, which left the Panthers without a single NHL-tested goalie under contract. Schmid changes that.
There’s real upside in the deal, too. Schmid stole a playoff series once. Back in 2023, he took over New Jersey’s net midway through a first-round matchup with the Rangers and posted a .951 save percentage across five starts, capped by a 4-0 shutout in Game 7.
Vegas didn’t just dump him, either. The Golden Knights extended Schmid a qualifying offer earlier Monday, then flipped him hours later.
That came after Vegas locked up goaltender Carl Lindbom on a three-year extension, so the net in the desert is already spoken for.
Schmid can become a restricted free agent on July 1. He lands with a Panthers club that’s stayed busy this offseason, having already picked up Radko Gudas’s rights in a separate trade with Anaheim.
For Florida, this is a low-cost swing on a goalie who’s flashed before. Across three years in New Jersey and one in Vegas, Schmid never nailed down a starting job. South Florida might be the place he finally gets the runway.
