SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFlorida Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today the club\u2019s opening night roster for the 2026-27\u00a0season. The Panthers open the season\u00a0with a 5:00 p.m. ET matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at Lenovo Center.<\/p>\n
Forwards (12)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 8 \u2013 Brady Tkachuk\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 9 \u2013 Sam Bennett\u00a0<\/p>\n
13 \u2013 Sam Reinhart\u00a0<\/p>\n
14 \u2013 Bokondji Imama\u00a0<\/p>\n
15 \u2013 Anton Lundell\u00a0<\/p>\n
16 \u2013 Aleksander Barkov (C)\u00a0<\/p>\n
19 \u2013 Matthew Tkachuk\u00a0<\/p>\n
20 \u2013 Lars Eller\u00a0<\/p>\n
21 \u2013 Garnet Hathaway\u00a0<\/p>\n
23 \u2013 Carter Verhaeghe\u00a0<\/p>\n
27 \u2013 Eetu Luostarinen\u00a0<\/p>\n
95 \u2013 Sandis\u00a0Vilmanis\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defensemen (7)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 3 \u2013 Seth Jones\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 5 \u2013 Aaron Ekblad\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 6 \u2013 Radko Gudas\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 7 \u2013 Dmitry Kulikov\u00a0<\/p>\n
26 \u2013\u00a0Uvis\u00a0Balinskis\u00a0<\/p>\n
42 \u2013 Gustav Forsling\u00a0<\/p>\n
77 \u2013 Niko Mikkola\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goaltenders (2)\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 25 \u2013 Jacob Markstrom\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0 40 \u2013 Akira Schmid\u00a0<\/p>\n
Injured\u00a0Reserve\u00a0(1)\u00a0<\/p>\n
63 \u2013 Brad Marchand\u00a0<\/p>\n
Injured\u00a0Non-Roster\u00a0(1) \u00a0<\/p>\n
12 \u2013 Jonah Gadjovich\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following players have been assigned to the Charlotte Checkers (AHL):\u00a0<\/p>\n
Forwards:\u00a0Nathan Bastian,\u00a0John Beecher,\u00a0Angus Crookshank,\u00a0Jack Devine,\u00a0Sam Lafferty,\u00a0Cole Reinhardt,\u00a0Samu Salminen,\u00a0Gracyn Sawchyn,\u00a0Cole Schwindt,\u00a0Kai Schwindt\u00a0and\u00a0Hunter St. Martin\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defensemen:\u00a0Marek Alscher,\u00a0Tobias\u00a0Bjornfot,\u00a0Casey Fitzgerald,\u00a0Mikulas Hovorka,\u00a0Ludvig Jansson,\u00a0Alexander Petrovic,\u00a0Emil Pieniniemi, Donovan Sebrango\u00a0and\u00a0Matvei Shuravin\u00a0<\/p>\n
Goaltenders:\u00a0Cooper Black,\u00a0Kirill Gerasimyuk\u00a0and\u00a0Tyler Muszelik\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following players have been released from their professional tryouts (PTO) and will report to the Charlotte Checkers (AHL):\u00a0<\/p>\n
Forwards:\u00a0William Bitten,\u00a0Karsen Dorwart,\u00a0Riese Gaber,\u00a0Robert Mastrosimone,\u00a0Liam\u00a0McLinskey\u00a0and\u00a0Nate Smith\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans can tune into Tuesday\u2019s season opener\u00a0against the Carolina Hurricanes\u00a0on ESPN and the\u00a0ESPN App\u00a0at\u00a05 p.m. ET.\u00a0A special\u00a0local\u00a0pre-game\u00a0show\u00a0begins\u00a0at\u00a04:30 p.m. ET\u00a0across Scripps Sports\u00a0stations and\u00a0PanthersPlus.TV\u00a0in\u00a0South Florida.\u00a0The game will also be available on 104.3 WQAM and Audacy.com. For complete broadcast information during the 2026-27 season, visit\u00a0FloridaPanthers.com\/HowToWatch<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n 2026-27 Florida Panthers single game tickets are on sale now! To score tickets for\u202fPanthers\u202fhome games throughout the campaign, click\u202fhere<\/a>. For all the latest in\u202fPanthers\u202fnews, concerts and events at\u202fAmerant\u202fBank Arena & FTL War Memorial, sign up for\u202f’93 Society newsletter<\/a>\u202fand receive information straight to your inbox. Visit\u202fFloridaPanthers.com<\/a>\u202for\u202fSeatGeek.com<\/a>\u202ffor all ticketing needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla.\u202f\u2013\u202fFlorida Panthers President of Hockey Operations & General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today the club\u2019s opening night roster for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-413176","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\/413176","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=413176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}