After Verhaeghe, Florida Panthers Looking at Locking Up Yet Another Key Member

The Florida Panthers opened up defense of their Stanley Cup title with a 6-4 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night, while at the same time getting star forward Carter Verhaeghe to agree to long-term team-friendly deal, following Sam Reinhart doing the same this past summer.

Next up? According to Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman, Sam Bennett will be the next core member that the Cup champs will look to lock up.

They are expected to make a run at keeping Sam Bennett, too. He’s good for them, and Florida is good for him. He’s not a scorer like Verhaeghe, but centres generally get rewarded.

Bennett, 28, is a hard-nosed two-way player, who's been able to pop 20 goals in two of the last three seasons, while taking care of the physical part of the game as well, doling out about 150 hits annually while posting a plus/minus rating of +52 over that span. He already found the net twice in the Panthers' opening night victory, and was a +3 in the game.

Bennett, if he agrees, will join the core of Reinhart ($8.625M AAV) and Verhaeghe ($7M AAV) as well as captain Sasha Barkov ($10M AAV through 2030) and Matthew Tkachuk ($9.5 million, through 2030) all signed long-term to keep this run in South Florida going through the end of the decade, and all essentially at under-market value.

Florida Panthers under contract through 2029-30:

— Aleksander Barkov
— Sam Reinhart
— Carter Verhaeghe
— Matthew Tkachuk
— Gustav Forsling
— Anton Lundell

Is Sam Bennett next?🔒 pic.twitter.com/mEXlxCJond
— FL PanthersMuse (@flpanthersmuse) October 9, 2024