The Florida Panthers have kept another member of their championship core off the market, agreeing with forward Eetu Luostarinen on an eight-year extension worth $40 million.
Per NHL.com, the deal carries a $5 million average annual value and begins in 2027-28, running through 2034-35. It replaces the final season of the three-year, $9 million contract ($3 million AAV) Luostarinen signed in 2023 — a raise that reflects both his role and the reality that Florida’s homegrown talent no longer comes cheap.
Luostarinen, 27, has won the Stanley Cup twice with the Panthers, in 2024 and 2025. He is not a headline scorer — 33 points (11 goals, 22 assists) in 73 games last season — but he anchors a defensively responsible middle six, kills penalties, and absorbs the matchup minutes that let Florida’s stars pick their spots. Committing eight years to that profile is a statement about how highly the Panthers value it.
This is how a champion stays a champion: identify the connective tissue and pay to keep it before the open market sets the number. Florida already brought back Radko Gudas earlier in free agency, and the Luostarinen deal follows the same logic — retention over reinvention. It is the least glamorous kind of signing and, for a team trying to run it back a third time, close to the most important.
Bill Zito’s cap sheet only tightens from here, and every long-term commitment to a role player narrows the margin for error elsewhere. But that is the trade Florida has decided it can live with. The alternative — letting a two-time champion’s spine walk for nothing — was never really on the table.
In fantasy terms, Luostarinen is a deep-league and multi-category option more than a scoring source. His middle-six usage and penalty-killing keep his point ceiling modest, but hits, blocks, and short-handed ice time give him value in formats that reward peripherals; in standard points leagues he stays on the waiver wire outside of the deepest rosters.
