{"id":88596,"date":"2020-10-09T13:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=88596"},"modified":"2020-10-09T13:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T17:00:03","slug":"florida-panthers-sign-carter-verhaeghe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/09\/florida-panthers-sign-carter-verhaeghe\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers Sign Carter Verhaeghe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/panthers\/\" target=\"_self\">Florida Panthers<\/a> have signed free agent forward <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/verhaca01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carter Verhaeghe<\/a><\/strong>. The deal is for two years with an average annual value of $1 million. Bob McKenzie announced the signing Friday morning.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">$900K in the first year; $1.1M in the second years. $1M AAV. They said there would be no math. \ud83e\udd2a <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0tmqLsYPVE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/0tmqLsYPVE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TSNBobMcKenzie\/status\/1314607632343347201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 9, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>\u00a0Panthers Sign Carter Verhaeghe<\/h2>\n<p>Verhaeghe was a productive depth option for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/lightning\/\" target=\"_self\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> in 2019-20. The 6&#8217;1&#8243;, 181-pound skater scored nine goals and 13 points in 52 games while averaging just 9:22 per contest. He also chipped in 29 hits despite the low playing time. This was Verhaeghe&#8217;s first year in the NHL but he was excellent in the past two seasons with Tampa&#8217;s AHL affiliate in Syracuse. There he scored 51 goals and 130 points in 134 games.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> originally selected Verhaeghe in the third round of the 2013 Draft but traded him in 2015 to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/islanders\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Islanders<\/a> in a big deal for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/grabnmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Grabner<\/a><\/strong>. The Isles then traded Verghaeghe to Tampa Bay in 2017 in exchange for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gudlekr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kristers Gudlevskis<\/a><\/strong>. Verhaeghe looks like the ultimate winner in all of those deals after a fine rookie season where he posted very fine numbers and helped win a Stanley Cup. He wasn&#8217;t a big part of the team&#8217;s success but he looks like a quality middle-six option for the Panthers moving into 2020-21.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>This is a fantastic opportunity for Verhaeghe to seize control of a big role in the next season. Florida is not nearly as deep as Tampa Bay was in 2019-20 so there should be plenty of opportunity. He might be the perfect second or third-line centre on his new team.<\/p>\n<p>This moves leaves Florida with $15.54 million in cap space. The recently <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/08\/columbus-blue-jackets-trade-markus-nutivaara-to-florida-panthers\/\" target=\"_self\">traded<\/a> for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nutivma01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Markus Nutivaara<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/09\/florida-panthers-sign-radko-gudas\/\" target=\"_self\">signed<\/a> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gudasra01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Radko Gudas<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>as blueline reinforcement but the team is far from finished making moves. They are in position to sign a big name if they want to. There are a few internal options to re-sign but nobody that should eat heavily into the current cap space.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"EUy39X69Syl_ZIzu6y6ptg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1272715870\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'EUy39X69Syl_ZIzu6y6ptg',sig:'oyehZdBW9yPD2sT7PLUp_LD5qnRcJUoo2PxfZm-xwgE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1272715870',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Panthers have signed free agent forward Carter Verhaeghe. The deal is for two years with an average annual value of $1 million. Bob McKenzie announced the signing Friday morning. $900K in the first year; $1.1M in the second years. $1M AAV. They said there would be no math. \ud83e\udd2a https:\/\/t.co\/0tmqLsYPVE &mdash; Bob McKenzie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":88614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[6,4547,34,4548],"tags":[1925,106],"class_list":["post-88596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-panthers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-carter-verhaeghe","tag-florida-panthers"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88596","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\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}