SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFlorida\u00a0Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has agreed to\u00a0terms with\u00a0defenseman\u00a0Casey Fitzgerald\u00a0on a one-year, two-way contract for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald,\u00a029, skated in 71 American Hockey League (AHL) games with the Hartford Wolfpack in 2026-27, producing 23 points (4-19-23).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 5-foot-11, 188-pound native of North Reading, Mass., has\u00a0competed\u00a0in 63 career NHL games with Florida (2022-23) and the Buffalo\u00a0Sabres\u00a0(2021-22 to 2022-23), compiling nine assists.\u00a0He has also played in 285 career AHL games between the Rochester Americans (2018-19 to 2021-22), Charlotte Checkers (2023-24)\u00a0and the Wolfpack (2024-25 to 2025-26), amassing 99 points (22-77-99).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to his professional career, Fitzgerald skated four seasons (2015-16 to 2018-19) with Boston College (NCAA), collecting 82 points (17-65-82) in 151 games. Fitzgerald was named to the Hockey East All-Rookie Team (2015-16), the Hockey East Second All-Star Team (2017-18) and named Best Defensive\u00a0Defensemen\u00a0that season. He served as captain of the Eagles in his junior and senior seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Originally selected by Buffalo in the third round (86th overall) of the 2016 NHL Draft, Fitzgerald earned gold medals\u00a0representing\u00a0the United States at the 2017 IIHF U20\u00a0World Junior Championship,\u00a02015 World U18 Championship\u00a0and 2014\u00a0World\u00a0U17 Hockey Challenge.\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\u00a0Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has agreed to\u00a0terms with\u00a0defenseman\u00a0Casey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-327606","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\/327606","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=327606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}