{"id":770319,"date":"2026-06-30T04:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770319\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T04:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:32:09","slug":"florida-panthers-acquire-akira-schmid-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770319\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers Acquire Akira Schmid \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Panthers have acquired netminder Akira Schmid<\/a> from the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for a 2028 third-round pick, per a team announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The trade, one made between the 2023 Stanley Cup Finalists, provides some clarity to an increasingly unsettled goaltending situation in South Florida.<\/p>\n

Before this trade, the Panthers only had three goaltenders under contract for next season: AHL starter Cooper Black<\/a>, AHL\/ECHL tweener\u00a0Kirill Gerasimyuk<\/a>, and rookie NCAA signing Tyler Muszelik<\/a>. All three goalies in the organization with any kind of NHL experience \u2013 starter Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>, backup Daniil Tarasov<\/a>, and veteran No. 3 Louis Domingue<\/a> \u2013 will become unrestricted free agents on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

By adding Schmid, 26, the Panthers have acquired a still-developing goalie with some legitimate NHL experience. The former New Jersey Devils prospect has played NHL games in each season since graduating from the USHL, amassing 82 career games played between 2021-22 and 2025-26.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before this past season, Schmid had struggled to advance beyond the status of organizational No. 3 goalie. While he had received a backup\u2019s workload in past seasons, much of that was to do more with the instability of the Devils\u2019 goaltending situation. In an organization with more stability in net, it\u2019s likely Schmid would have spent much of that time in the AHL.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say he hasn\u2019t had his moments at the professional level, though. Schmid posted a .911 save percentage in 38 games as an AHL rookie in 2021-22, and had a stellar .922 save percentage in 18 NHL games the following year.<\/p>\n

Schmid displayed incredible promise in the playoffs that same year, taking over the net for the Devils in the middle of their first-round playoff series against their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n

Former Devils head coach Lindy Ruff\u2019s decision to start Schmid was the turnaround point of that series, as Schmid registered two shutouts and a cumulative .951 save percentage across his five starts in that series. His 4-0 shutout over the Rangers in game seven of that series ranked as one of the franchise\u2019s highest moments in the decade that followed its 2012 run to the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n

At that moment, it looked as though there was real potential for Schmid to become the Devils\u2019 \u201cgoalie of the future.\u201d But that would not come to pass. Schmid struggled the following year (.895 save percentage, 19 games played) and was ultimately shipped to Vegas alongside 2020 No. 7 overall pick Alexander Holtz<\/a> on this date two years ago.<\/p>\n

While Schmid\u2019s form had been defined by its highs and lows before his trade to the Golden Knights, Schmid\u2019s tenure in Vegas represented a solid step forward. He spent most of the 2024-25 campaign in the AHL, but performed well in his five-game cameo at the NHL level, to the tune of a .944 save percentage. That gave Vegas confidence they could trust him in the NHL the following season. In 2025-26, Schmid went 16-10-6 with an .893 save percentage and 2.59 goals-against-average.<\/p>\n

While he routinely provided Vegas with enough to win games, and actually started the most regular-season contests of any Golden Knights netminder, the team turned to Carter Hart<\/a> as their No. 1 goalie. That kept Schmid off the ice as the Golden Knights won their third Clarence S. Campbell Bowl in franchise history.<\/p>\n

By trading Schmid, the Golden Knights have begun to clear up a somewhat crowded goaltending picture. Hart remains under contract and is expected to resume his No. 1 role next season, while 2023 Stanley Cup champion Adin Hill<\/a> is a very real possibility to be traded in the coming days. Hill carries a $6.25MM cap hit and Vegas may need to clear that money off their books to be able to extend Rasmus Andersson<\/a>. And amidst all of that, one of Vegas\u2019 top goalie prospects, Carl Lindbom<\/a>, appears to be close to NHL-ready after posting a .926 save percentage in the AHL.<\/p>\n

With Schmid out of a contract and eligible for arbitration, this junction of the offseason felt like a natural point for Vegas to move on from the goalie.<\/p>\n

From the Panthers\u2019 perspective, the third-round pick the team paid falls in line with other comparable moves from prior offseasons. It cost the Pittsburgh Penguins a fourth-round pick to acquire goaltender Arturs Silovs<\/a> last summer, though Silovs had a notably thinner NHL resume compared to Schmid.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s tough to imagine the Panthers trusting Schmid as their undisputed No. 1 goalie next season \u2013 a season where the team expects to compete for a third Stanley Cup in four years \u2013 it\u2019s clear he\u2019ll at least make up half of the team\u2019s goaltending tandem.<\/p>\n

That means backup Tarasov, who posted an .895 save percentage in 33 games last season, is likely to hit the open market.<\/p>\n

The trade could also signal Florida is willing to move forward without Bobrovsky, the hero of the team\u2019s three deep playoff runs. But at this stage, it\u2019s important to caution that it\u2019s still too early to do anything but speculate on what the full scope of the Panthers\u2019 goaltending plans are. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic wrote<\/a> the trade \u201cshouldn\u2019t be seen as a sign of whether or not Bobrovsky is gone.\u201d All that is clear today is that the Panthers had a definite need to invest more resources in NHL-ready talent in their crease, and they\u2019ve done exactly that with this deal.<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Brett Holmes-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers have acquired netminder Akira Schmid from the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for a 2028…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[273510,49,48,747,4247,82,767],"class_list":["post-770319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-akira-schmid","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-florida-panthers","tag-newsstand","tag-sports","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}