{"id":443923,"date":"2024-10-09T04:41:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T08:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=443923"},"modified":"2024-10-09T04:41:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T08:41:05","slug":"florida-panthers-re-sign-top-forwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/09\/florida-panthers-re-sign-top-forwards\/","title":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers Re-Sign One of their Top Forwards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/panthers\/\" target=\"_self\">Florida Panthers<\/a> and one of their big time goal scorers have agreed to terms. You know you are a deep team, like the Panthers are, when you hear a statement like that, and not sure which of the four or five players we could be talking about. There&#8217;s plenty of reasons why the Florida Panthers captured the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup championship. But as he signs the contract, having someone like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/verhaca01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-06-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter Verhaeghe<\/a> as just another of the guys, shows how strong of a team the Panthers had. The contract is for eight years and will see him earn an average annual value of $7 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mentioned they were closing in during pregame tonight<\/p>\n<p>8 x $7M <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EPrlE8VcXU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/EPrlE8VcXU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1843846161565917262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 9, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Carter Verhaeghe Re-Signs an Extension to Stay With the Florida Panthers<\/h2>\n<p>Carter Verhaeghe was a bit of a late bloomer, having to apply his craft down in the ECHL a couple different times, before working his way up to a more regular AHL role. Then, he was able to crack an eventual Stanley Cup winning lineup with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> in 2019-20. And since that time, has never really looked back. On another note, for those fans that may not have remembered, Verhaeghe is originally a Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick from the third round of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft.<\/p>\n<p>Carter Verhaeghe has really taken advantage of the opportunity that South Florida has brought him. Panthers current general manager Bill Zito originally signed Verhaeghe back in 2020-21 for a $1 million a year contract. And since that signing, wow, has it ever paid dividends. In four seasons with the Panthers, Verhaeghe had a career-high 42 goals one season, and overall 118 goals and 118 assists good for 236 through 278 games. Moreover, Verhaeghe still doesn&#8217;t really give vibes of being a goal-scorer, despite his fantastic goal scoring rate. He works hard, isn&#8217;t afraid of contact when he is battling off the cycle down low, and has a decent snapshot that has turned him into a goal-scorer. At the end of the day, he is a producer. In 2023-24, he finished second on the Panthers in goals (34) and fourth in points (72). That was all the while playing just shy of 18 minutes a night. Furthermore, he even picked it up slightly for the Panthers in the post-season. On the way to capturing the cup, Verhaeghe had 11 goals and 10 assists for 21 points in 24 games played.<\/p>\n<h3>What Does this Mean for the Florida Panthers<\/h3>\n<p>The Panthers ended the 2024 campaign with a Stanley Cup victory. However, they also headed into the free agency period with a lot of free agents. Sometimes this can happen when a team plays late into June, and the contract negotiations are understandably pushed back. And if they had to pay one of the players, it might as well be a good one. And Carter Verhaeghe certainly is a good one.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo credit: Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Panthers and one of their big time goal scorers have agreed to terms. You know you are a deep team, like the Panthers are, when you hear a statement like that, and not sure which of the four or five players we could be talking about. There&#8217;s plenty of reasons why the Florida [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":443924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4547,34,4548],"tags":[1925,955],"class_list":["post-443923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-panthers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-carter-verhaeghe","tag-nhl-news"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}