SUNRISE, Fla.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Florida Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0agreed to terms with\u00a0goaltender\u00a0Akira Schmid\u00a0on a\u00a0two-year contract\u00a0through the 2027-28 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We\u00a0are\u00a0excited to sign Akira for the next\u00a0two\u00a0seasons in South Florida,” said Zito. “He has the size, athleticism and competitive drive that fits the identity of\u00a0the Florida Panthers, and we’re\u00a0looking forward to\u00a0watching him succeed with\u00a0our group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schmid, 26, appeared in 34 games with\u00a0the\u00a0Vegas\u00a0Golden Knights\u00a0in 2025-26 producing a 16-10-6 record and two shutouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound native of Bern, Switzerland has competed in 82 career NHL games, logging a 32-28-10 record and three shutouts between five seasons with Vegas (2024-25 to 2025-26) and the New Jersey Devils (2021-22 to 2023-24).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Schmid has appeared in 10 games recording a cumulative 4-4 record, .924 save percentage, 2.26 goals against average and two shutouts, the\u00a0second-highest\u00a0save percentage and fourth-lowest goals against average among goaltenders with at least 10 playoff appearances since 2022-23. His two playoff shutouts both came with the Devils in Round 1 vs. the New York Rangers, where he became the fifth rookie goalie in NHL history to post a shutout in a Game 7, and the 10th\u00a0rookie netminder to post multiple shutouts in the same playoff series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the international stage, Schmid most recently represented Switzerland at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina and earned a silver medal at the 2024 IIHF World Championship, posting a perfect 3-0-0 record along with a .946 save percentage and 0.86 goals against average over three tournament games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to his professional experience, Schmid played three seasons in the United States Hockey League (USHL) between the Omaha Lancers (2018-19 to 2019-20) and Sioux City Musketeers (2019-20 to 2020-21), compiling a cumulative 43-33-4 record, .918 save percentage and 2.27\u00a0goals against average. He was named USHL Goaltender of the Year in 2020-21 after leading the league in goals against average (2.01) and save percentage (.921) with Sioux City. Schmid also led the USHL in save percentage in 2018-19, posting a .926 mark with Omaha.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schmid was originally selected by New Jersey in the fifth round (136th\u00a0overall) of the 2018 NHL Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2026-27 Florida Panthers preseason tickets are on sale now! To score tickets for the Panthers matchups\u00a0on Sept. 20\u00a0vs. Carolina Hurricanes and\u00a0Sept. 26\u00a0vs. Tampa Bay Lightning, click\u00a0here<\/a>. 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.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Florida Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0agreed to terms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-351867","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\/351867","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=351867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}