Florida Panthers sign young goaltender to a ridiculous contract extension
Spencer Knight has only played in 36 NHL games up to this point of his career, but that didn't stop the Panthers from making him one of the 30 highest paid goaltenders in the NHL. This morning the Panthers announced that they'd signed Knight to a 3-year contract extension with a cap hit of $4,500,000 per season. The deal comes as a surprise to many as Knight is still under contract for 1 more season on his entry level deal.
Knight was drafted by the Florid Panthers 13th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. Knight signed with the Panthers on March 31, 2021 and burned the first year of his NHL deal. Knight played 4 games in his inaugural season before following that up with 32 appearances during his rookie year.
The most surprising part of the extension for Knight is the AAV. Knight's deal comes in with a cap hit $500,000 higher than the deal just signed by Jake Oettinger with the Dallas Stars. In his NHL career Knight is 23-9-3 with a save percentage of .909 and goals against average of 2.74.
With this deal the expectation must be that the Panthers plan on relying on Knight more frequently and feel his next contract would have increased well beyond the deal they just gave him. That Panthers will have over $15,000,000 committed to their goaltenders beginning next season, unless they're able to move Sergei Bobrovsky.
| POLL | ||
Who will have more starts next season? | ||
| Spencer Knight | 25 | 52.1 % |
| Sergei Bobrovsky | 23 | 47.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
