Jonathan Huberdeau signs six-year, $35.4M contract extension with Panthers

The Florida Panthers have signed young scoring winger Jonathan Huberdeau to a six-year contract extension worth $35.4 million. The salary cap hit on Huberdeau’s new contract comes out to $5.9 million per-year.

According to Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston, the deal has a no-move clause starting in 2019-20 and becomes an eight-team no-trade clause in its last season.

The 23-year-old Huberdeau was entering the final season of a two-year $6.5 million deal he signed in mid-September of 2015. Overall, Huberdeau’s extension is similar to the deal franchise center Aleksander Barkov signed with the Panthers last January.

Huberdeau was the final Panthers’ core piece who needed to be signed either this summer or next.

This offseason the Panthers have signed defenseman Aaron Ekblad, forward Reilly Smith and forward Vincent Trocheck to long-term contract extensions. Ekblad, Smith and Huberdeau were slated to be restricted free agents next summer, but the Panthers clearly wanted to set up their core for the long-term sooner rather than later.

Barkov, Trocheck, center Nick Bjugstad, Smith, Huberdeau and Ekblad are all 25-or-younger. Bjugstad’s contract will expire first, after the 2020-21 season.

“There’s a core of players here that know – we’ve given you great teammates, we’re going to add people as the opportunities arise but it’s up to you guys to come together as a team and win multiple Stanley Cups and that’s the plan,” Panthers co-owner Doug Cifu said during a July interview with Puck Daddy.

Last season, Huberdeau set career-highs with 20 goals and 59 points in 76 games, mostly playing on a top line with Barkov and Jaromir Jagr. He owned a 49.44 score, zone and venue adjusted 5-on-5 CF%. His score, zone and venue adjusted 5-on-5 CF% Rel was 0.37.

The Panthers have $60,827,499 million locked into 25 contracts for the 2017-18 season and $63,783,332 million committed to the team’s salary cap structure for this upcoming year. This gives them $9,216,668 of salary cap space to start 2016-17.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper