SUNRISE, Fla.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Florida Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0acquired\u00a0goaltender\u00a0Akira Schmid\u00a0from the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for\u00a0Florida\u2019s own third-round\u00a0selection\u00a0in the 2028 NHL Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAkira is\u00a0a talented and athletic goaltender who has shown\u00a0poise\u00a0in high-pressure moments,\u201d said Zito.\u00a0\u201cWe are excited to welcome him to our organization.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schmid, 26, appeared in 34 games with Vegas\u00a0in 2025-26 producing a 16-10-6 record\u00a0and two shutouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-5, 190-pound native of Bern, Switzerland\u00a0has competed in 82 career NHL games, logging a 32-28-10 record\u00a0and three shutouts\u00a0between 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,\u00a0Schmid has appeared in 10 games recording a cumulative 4-4 record, .924 save percentage,\u00a02.26 goals against average\u00a0and two shutouts,\u00a0the\u00a0second-highest\u00a0save percentage and fourth-lowest goals against average among goaltenders with at least 10 playoff appearances since 2022-23.\u00a0His two playoff shutouts both came\u00a0with 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,\u00a0Schmid most recently\u00a0represented 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\u00a0along with a .946 save percentage and 0.86 goals against average over three tournament games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prior to\u00a0his professional experience, Schmid\u00a0played three seasons in the United States Hockey League (USHL) between the Omaha Lancers\u00a0(2018-19 to 2019-20) and Sioux City Musketeers (2019-20 to 2020-21), compiling a\u00a0cumulative\u00a043-33-4 record, .918 save percentage and 2.27 goals 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)\u00a0with 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 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.\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Florida Panthers President of Hockey Operations and General Manager\u00a0Bill Zito\u00a0announced today that the club has\u00a0acquired\u00a0goaltender\u00a0Akira Schmid\u00a0from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-734166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}