Panthers Acquire Goaltender Vitek Vanecek From Sharks

Four days after trading Spencer Knight to the Chicago Blackhawks, the Florida Panthers have a new backup goaltender. 

The Panthers acquired Vitek Vanecek from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for prospect Patrick Giles, the team announced on Wednesday. 

Vanecek, 29, was 3-10-3 in 18 games this season (17 starts) with a rebuilding Sharks team. The Czech native posted a 3.88 goals against average (GAA), and a .882 save percentage — both career-lows.

In his five-year NHL career, Vanecek is 94-52-20 in 181 games (169 starts), with a 2.82 GAA and .903 save percentage. 

Giles, 25, has spent most of this season in the AHL with the Charlotte Checkers — putting up 5 goals, 2 assists and 7 points in 39 games. The 6-foot-5 forward played in nine games this season with the Panthers.

After placing forward Matthew Tkachuk on LTIR Sunday, the Panthers had $8.7M of cap space to work with, per PuckPedia.

Vaneck — an unrestricted free agent this offseason — has a cap hit of $3.4M. The Sharks didn’t retain any salary, according to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. 

The Panthers still have around $5.3M of cap space if they wanted any more moves before Friday’s NHL trade deadline.

Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press was first to report the trade