area of need <\/a>for the Panthers. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and backup Daniil Tarasov will both be free agents in a matter of days, leaving Florida with a crucial hole \u2014 or net \u2013 to fill.<\/p>\nSchmid has spent the past two seasons in Vegas after being drafted to the New Jersey Devils in the fifth round of the 2018 draft and spending three years there. He saw minimal action with the Devils, starting 15 games in his final season, and it was about the same story when he first got to Vegas. The Bern, Switzerland, native started just three games in his 2024-25 campaign.<\/p>\n
However, last season things began to turn around for the 26-year-old. He played 34 games for the Knights, starting 29. In that span, he posted a 2.59 goals against average and .893 save percentage.<\/p>\n
Across his NHL career, he played in 10 playoff games and recorded two playoff shutouts with the Devils. He became the fifth rookie goalie in NHL history to have a Game 7 shutout.<\/p>\n
Aside from his recent NHL experience, he also represented Switzerland at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Before the NHL, Schmid competed in the United States Hockey League for three seasons. He earned USHL Goaltender of the Year in his final season (202-21), posting a league-leading 2.01 goals against average and .921 save percentage.<\/p>\n
While he lacks extensive postseason experience, he is considered a solid pickup for the Panthers and would be a capable starter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers acquired goalie Akira Schmid from the Vegas Golden Knights, general manager Bill Zito announced late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,1180,4,63,311,43],"class_list":["post-610773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida-panthers","tag-florida","tag-florida-panthers","tag-floridapanthers","tag-hockey","tag-latest-headlines","tag-nhl","tag-panthers","tag-social","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116837253357337571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}