The Man With the Plan

um akira schmidt's actually a guy i've always kind of liked i mean he came out of nowhere uh with the devils actually a few years ago and i picked him up uh as a flyer on fantasy and fantasy and i just was like hey every time this guy starts he puts up good numbers And, yeah, I've kind of just followed his career from there.

He was pressed into duty a few years ago in the playoffs and played extremely well and was actually their goalie.

Made it all the way to the conference final before getting embarrassed by the Edmonton Oilers.

So picking him up for a third round pick, I mean, it's a little bit high of a price.

Um, in the sense of, you know, a third round pick for a one B type goalie, who's he's like, he doesn't really have Jack pedigree.

He's, he's, he's fine.

Um, been through with a bunch of organizations, like, and it was a team that needed, you know, the biggest gold Knights who needed to move a goalie.

So I thought the price, the acquisition cost was a little high, but I'm not complaining about it.

The big move is obviously Evan Rodriguez for Jacob Markstrom.

If you've been a Panthers fan for longer than three years, if you're listening to this podcast, I think you have.

You remember that name.

He was drafted by the Florida Panthers, was considered the goalie of the future Panthers.

During the Dale Tallon era and had an up and down 43 games with the Panthers.

There were nights he looked like he was about to be a, you know, all-star caliber goalie who was going to backstop the Panthers to playoff relevance.

And then there were nights he was really, really bad.

eventually he got shipped out in the trade that brought luongo back to south florida and ironically enough luongo is the the head of the goaltender excellence department and he is now the head of the goaltender excellence department for a goalie that was he was traded for so that that's got to make him feel old and have the knees creaking a little bit but um Look, I don't want to say the Panthers were backed into a corner when it came to the goalie tending situation, but they kind of were.

Everyone, you know, when this offseason started, everyone kind of expected, all right, it's going to be Sergei Bobrovsky.

He's going to, you know, they're going to come to an agreement.

Like every time, like every time the Panthers had a player in the last three years under the Zito era where it's like, oh, we're going to lose this guy and it's going to suck.

he's found a way to keep him the only time he couldn't is after the 2023 season where or yeah the 23 season where there was just no cap space or excuse me after 24 where there just was no cap space and you had to say goodbye to brandon montour yeah uh because he was just getting it way too much money and that was it like but you know every you know but last year You found a way to bring Brad Marchand back.

You thought you were going to say goodbye to Aaron Eckblad.

You brought Aaron Eckblad back.

Sam Bennett, well, you knew you were keeping him because he told everyone, I'm not fucking leaving.

But you went into that offseason expecting to lose two of those three, and you kept all three.

So when you went into this offseason, it was like, okay, yeah, we're not losing Bob.