Panthers Acquire Garnet Hathaway

Hathaway, 34, skated in 66 games with Philadelphia in 2025-26. He scored three points and led the Flyers with 252 hits, the ninth most among all NHL skaters last season. He was also the Flyers’ nominee for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy and scored two points in eight Stanley Cup Playoff games. The Naples, Florida native ends his career in Philadelphia with 18 goals, 23 assists, and 41 points in 215 games, the second-most he’s played with any team in his 11-year NHL career.

This will be Hathaway’s final season of a two-year deal signed by the Flyers back in 2025-26, which will earn him a total of $4.8MM in total salary. The Panthers now have just around $5.8MM in cap space to use towards free agency while they still evaluate the need for an NHL serviceable goaltender. Considering they have all roster spots ideally filled in, it would appear that, along with Greer, Vinnie Hinostroza, Tomas Nosek, Luke Kunin, and Noah Gregor are among the names likely to find new squads to play for, while GM Bill Zito continues his pursuit of getting his squad’s final need filled in.

The end of that two-year deal will be his sixth contract across his NHL tenure, spending his first three with the Calgary Flames from 2015 to 2019, signing league minimum deals for no more than two years at a time up until July 1st, 2019. In his first year of unrestricted free agency, he inked a four-year, $6MM ($1.5MM AAV) deal with the Washington Capitals, where he spent all four seasons until the 2022-23 deadline, when the record-breaking 65-win Boston Bruins acquired his services. After that season, Hathaway signed in Philadelphia, where he provided veteran leadership early on and decent production, but in 2025-26, his decline in production led to him falling back in the depth chart with Philadelphia’s young talent moving up the food chain.

As for the Flyers, this continues a trend they’ve been in dating back to last year’s playoff push, in the offloading of forwards they didn’t see fit for the future. Dating back to last season’s trade deadline, they sent Bobby Brink to Minnesota, Nicolas Deslauriers to Carolina, and now Hathaway to Florida, all to free up around $5MM to their now $33.6MM in cap space for this summer.

Most importantly for the Flyers’ to-do list, it includes their restricted free agents in need of contract extensions in forwards Trevor Zegras, Nikita Grebenkin, and Jamie Drysdale. All of whom acquired from outside the organization have come in and proven worthy as part of the future in Philadelphia.

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