The Florida Panthers have locked up their future in net, signing Spencer Knight to a three-year extension. The deal kicks in for the 2023-24 season and will carry an average annual value of $4.5MM. Panthers general manager Bill Zito released a statement:
Spencer is a phenomenal goaltender, as well as an exceptional athlete and person. He has thrived in his professional career, dedicating himself to his training through his first two seasons with our organization. With this extension, we are excited about the present and future of Panthers goaltending.
A three-year extension means Knight’s contract status now lines up with Sergei Bobrovsky, with both expiring after the 2025-26 season. While the team will have to carry a combined $14.5MM cap hit those three years, Knight will still be an RFA in the summer of 2026, meaning a long-term extension can still be worked out with the money that Bobrovsky was earning.
For this year, the 21-year-old netminder is still in the final season of his entry-level contract, despite already being a regular at the NHL level. The 13th overall pick from 2019 played in 32 games for the Panthers last season, registering a .908 save percentage. He also got into 11 games with the Charlotte Checkers to stay fresh, posting a .905 in the AHL.
Incredibly composed in net, Knight is basically the prototype for the modern NHL goaltender. Big and agile with strong positioning, there are few goaltending prospects better. While his results do leave a little bit of room for improvement, the Panthers obviously believe he is the real deal, signing him to a rather expensive bridge deal. He comes in ahead of Jake Oettinger (3 years, $4.0MM AAV), and Carter Hart (3 years, $3.979MM AAV), two other young goaltenders with big expectations.
It will be interesting to see how much Knight starts to take over in Florida, and whether the Panthers will ever consider moving on from Bobrovsky. While he holds a full no-movement clause at the moment, that will change to a 16-team no-trade list in the summer of 2024. It would obviously be difficult to move his massive contract but one thing in the Panthers’ favor is the financial structure. Bobrovsky will have earned $57.5MM of the $70MM deal by the end of 2023-24.
Regardless, locking up Knight at this point was important if they plan on giving him more responsibility this season. A breakout campaign would send his price skyrocketing, and potentially take a bridge deal off the table. Locking him in now is a bit risky, as it assumes he will continue to progress, but there aren’t many goaltenders that would be a better bet.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports
Now if they could only move Bob……
What About Bob?
Don’t know how the heck a team can compete with a near 15 million dollar goalie combo. Not sure how their gonna get rid of bob either considering Florida doesn’t have a 1st for another 2 seasons
Completely agree. I’ve never been a fan of tying up a lot of money in the goaltending position. Montreal is ‘Exhibit A’ for that with the Price contract.
The last few years the Panthers can retain 50% of Bobrovsky’s cap hit since his actual salary drops. Any contending team might need a starting goalie by then (like Toronto this off-season).
$15 MM AAV cap hit. Jesus Christ.
And this is why Florida isn’t going to win any Cups. The money they’re blowing by overpaying their goalies costs them a top-six forward or a top-pairing defenseman.
There was an article on either TSN or Sportsnet.ca a couple days ago about how there’s a strong correlation between teams winning the Cup and their top stars *not* making top dollar, citing guys like Patrice Bergeron. You got to figure that if MacKinnon was earning market rate last year, Colorado doesn’t win the Cup: they had to do backflips to get Landeskog under the cap ceiling as it was. MacKinnon making north of $10 MM AAV, that just doesn’t happen.
Yeah, things like that happen with a salary cap. You don’t have to be Bob MacKenzie to figure that out.
This is waaaaay to high for a backup. Oettinger is starting in Dallas and makes less. What is Florida thinking here? He was an RFA….
He played 32 games last year, they have to figure he gets a few more this year to make it a split situation, then next year when the contract kicks in they try to make him their #1 and try to shed themselves of Bob at that point. Trade him at half retained for his last 2 seasons costs a team 5M total but counts as 10M per season. That could be attractive to a team like the Coyotes. Or they buy him out and save 3.33M per.
They’re not going have any better luck unloading Bob than they’ve had so far. Even with an impending cap raise, that contract’s untradeable, even if Bob *didn’t* have a full no-movement clause. Which he does. And a top-loaded one that makes for meager savings in a buyout. Which he does too. It’s close to a Parise/Suter level boy-did-they-screw-themselves deal.