Nate Schmidt traded to Vancouver Canucks as Vegas lands Pietrangelo

Nate Schmidt will not be joining the Florida Panthers after all as the defenseman was traded to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night.

On Sunday, Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest tweeted that Vegas and Florida were working on a trade which would have brought Schmidt to the Panthers.

Vegas needed cap space in order to sign free agent Alex Pietrangelo.

On Monday, the Golden Knights inked the former captain of the St. Louis Blues to a seven-year contract with a cap hit of $8.8 million annually.

Vegas trades Nate Schmidt to the Vancouver Canucks for a 3rd round draft pick in 2022.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) October 13, 2020

Not long afterward, it was announced the Knights had sent Schmidt to Vancouver.

The Canucks sent a third-round pick in the 2022 draft to the cap-strapped Knights.

New Florida Panthers general manager has been busy over the past few weeks, trading Colton Sceviour and Mike Matheson to Pittsburgh for Patric Hornqvist while also acquiring defenseman Markus Nutivaara from Columbus.

On Friday, the Panthers added five players through free agency including Radko Gudas, Alexander Wennberg and Carter Verhaeghe.

According to Puckpedia.com, the Panthers have 17 players under NHL contract (not including RFAs MacKenzie Weegar or Alexsi Saarela nor likely roster forwards Owen Tippett and Grigori Denisenko).

Although both Mark Pysyk (Dallas), Dryden Hunt (Arizona) and Lucas Wallmark (Chicago) have landed elsewhere, Mike Hoffman, Evgenii Dadonov and Erik Haula remain free agents.

Florida is roughly $12 million under the NHL salary cap for the coming season.

The NHL is hoping to begin the 2020-21 season around Jan. 1 with training camp opening up sometime in December.