Panthers secure key piece with eight-year extension

Florida Panthers center Sam Reinhart.

The Panthers managed to get top pending UFA right winger Sam Reinhart signed to a max-term, eight-year extension before Sunday night’s midnight ET deadline, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports. As such, last year’s 57-goal man is off the market and will stay with the defending Stanley Cup champions through the 2031-32 season. The deal will carry an annual cap hit of $8.625M, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

They ran close to the deadline, but Florida has found a way to sign Reinhart to the maximum extension after a career-defining year on the team’s top line. Reinhart added 37 assists, bringing his scoring up to a career-high 94 points in 82 games. The totals trump his previous career-high of 82 points – set during his first year with the Panthers in 2021-22. But it wasn’t just all offense, as Reinhart also finished fourth in Selke Trophy voting – the first behind finalists Aleksander Barkov, Jordan Staal and Auston Matthews.

Reinhart achieved his scoring on the back of fantastic shooting any time he came close to the slot. That made him all the more dangerous when he had extra space on the power play, with Reinhart scoring a league-leading 27 goals on the man advantage this year. He kept things hot in the postseason too, with nine goals and 15 points in 22 games – one more goal and assist than he managed in 21 playoff games last year.

Florida acquired Reinhart’s rights in July of 2021, trading away the rights to goaltender Devon Levi and the first-round selection used on Jiri Kulich. The deal freed Reinhart from a middling Sabres team. Reinhart had found success in Buffalo, scoring 20 goals in five of his six seasons with the Sabres and flirting with the 50-point mark. But with little support around him, Reinhart was tasked the duties of play-driving and even taking faceoffs, pulling him away from the high-tempo offense he clearly prefers.

That role has changed with the Panthers, who have been much more content to let Reinhart play a shoot-first game from the wing. That’s certainly helped along by Florida’s much improved center depth, headlined by the incredibly quick and always-responsible Barkov. The change has clearly inspired something within Reinhart, who’s posted 121 goals and 243 points across 242 games with the Panthers.

Reinhart now receives the contract of a lineup staple, though surprisingly avoiding the illustrious $9M figure that many top players are seeking. Only 11 players have scored 50-or-more goals in the last five seasons. Of them, Chris Kreider is the only other one not making at least $9M. He instead carries a very team-friendly $6.5M cap hit through the next three seasons. Florida couldn’t get so lucky to sign Reinhart to that kind of deal, but they’ll come close by keeping him under $8.75M.

With a new deal in place, Reinhart is destined for a star role in Florida for as long as he can hold onto it. Meanwhile, the team will now enter the open market with $10.892M in cap space. It still needs to re-sign restricted free agents Anton Lundell and Josh Mahura – and will still sit three forwards and one defender shy after those deals. That could set the Panthers up for a few meager additions on the open market, though strained cap space could have Florida instead looking to promote players like Mackie Samoskevich, Rasmus Asplund or Michael Benning.

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