{"id":444731,"date":"2024-07-03T11:48:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T15:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=444731"},"modified":"2024-07-03T11:48:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T15:48:51","slug":"florida-panthers-extend-young-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/07\/03\/florida-panthers-extend-young-centre\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers Extend Young Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Florida Panthers forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/lundean01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anton Lundell<\/a> has a new contract in place. An original draft pick by the team will <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/renlavoietva\/status\/1808516828206907457?s=46\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">see him stick around<\/a> for the next six years. Also, he will have an AAV of $5 million per season. Thats a tremendous contract and with great value. Coming fresh off a Championship, the Panthers are building the next wave of hockey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Lundell Inks Contract With Panthers <\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The big centre for the Panthers has shown promise ever since coming into the league. His rookie season saw him tally 44 points and 18 goals. Also, he is coming off back to back 30 point season and has continued to be that extra layer of scoring for the team. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Lundell was a key part of an extremely deep Panthers team during the 2023-24 season. He was eighth on the team in points during the regular season and fourth during the playoffs. That was his moment and his absolutely seized it. Given how young he is, Lundell becomes a building block for the Panthers for the foreseeable future. So, this contract is great for both sides. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The State Of The Panthers <\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The Lundell contract makes sense for both sides. Lundell has proven himself to be a worthy piece to build around. Furthermore, given the changes the team had undergone this summer, keeping him makes sense. The team went on to lose key players such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/lombery01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Lomberg<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/montobr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Montour<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/ekmanol01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oliver Ekman-Larsson<\/a> in free agency. You cannot keep everyone, so that was expected. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">The team did manage to retain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/verhaca01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter Verhaeghe<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/reinhsa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sam Reinhart<\/a> on new deals. The forward group is very much intact and Lundell can slot in behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/barkoal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-03_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aleksander Barkov<\/a> and give the team tremendous depth down the middle. This is great for Lundell and how he can build upon this going forward. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Main Photo: Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Florida Panthers forward Anton Lundell has a new contract in place. An original draft pick by the team will see him stick around for the next six years. Also, he will have an AAV of $5 million per season. Thats a tremendous contract and with great value. Coming fresh off a Championship, the Panthers are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4194,"featured_media":444732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[4547,6,34,4548],"tags":[6608],"class_list":["post-444731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-panthers","category-news","category-nhl","tag-florida-panthers-news"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444731","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\/4194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}