SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFlorida Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager\u00a0Bill\u00a0Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has agreed to terms with forward\u00a0Sandis Vilmanis\u00a0on a two-year contract\u00a0extension\u00a0commencing\u00a0with the 2027-28 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSandis\u00a0is a\u00a0skilled, competitive\u00a0young player whose positive attitude and strong work ethic have allowed him to succeed\u00a0at every opportunity he has earned,\u201d said Zito.\u00a0\u201cHe continues to take real strides in his\u00a0game\u00a0and we\u2019re proud\u00a0that he has committed to a further two years in South Florida.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vilmanis, 22,\u00a0skated in 19 games with Florida in 2025-26, producing five points (3-2-5). He\u00a0also\u00a0appeared in\u00a048 contests with Florida\u2019s American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate Charlotte Checkers,\u00a0ranking third on the team with\u00a038 points (17-21-38)\u00a0while\u00a0pacing the club\u2019s forwards\u00a0with a plus-17 rating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-2, 192-pound native of Riga, Latvia has\u00a0posted 65 points (26-39-65)\u00a0in\u00a0109\u00a0AHL games over two seasons with\u00a0Charlotte (2024-25 to 2025-26).\u00a0In Charlotte\u2019s run to the 2025 Calder Cup Final, Vilmanis logged seven points (3-4-7) over 11 postseason contests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the international stage,\u00a0Vilmanis represented Latvia at the\u00a02021 and 2022 IIHF World\u00a0U18\u00a0Championship, the 2022, 2023 and 2024 IIHF\u00a0U20\u00a0World Junior Championship,\u00a0the 2026 IIHF World Championship and the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina.\u00a0He\u00a0paced all Latvian skaters with 11 points (4-7-11) over eight games at the 2026 IIHF World Championship\u00a0and was named a Top Three Player on Latvia at the 2024 U20\u00a0WJC.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Originally selected by\u00a0the\u00a0Panthers\u00a0in the fifth round (157th\u00a0overall) of\u00a0the 2022 NHL Draft, Vilmanis\u00a0competed in two Ontario Hockey League (OHL) seasons with the Sarnia Sting (2022-23 to 2023-24) and North Bay Battalion (2023-24), recording\u00a0112 points (58-54-112).\u00a0<\/p>\n
2026-27 Florida Panthers Territory Memberships are available now! Click\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0to learn more. For all the latest in\u00a0Panthers\u00a0news, concerts and events at\u00a0Amerant\u00a0Bank Arena & FTL War Memorial, sign up for\u00a0’93 Society newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and receive information straight to your inbox. Visit\u00a0FloridaPanthers.com<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0SeatGeek.com<\/a>\u00a0for all ticketing needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFlorida Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager\u00a0Bill\u00a0Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has agreed to terms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-326189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}