The Florida Panthers signed Kai Schwindt to a three-year, entry-level contract on September 30, 2022 after the undrafted forward put in an impressive showing at the team’s development camp and training camp.
Schwindt even lit the lamp in the Panthers’ 2022 preseason opener, a 4-3 overtime win against the Nashville Predators before he was returned to the Mississauga Steelheads of the Ontario Hockey League.
During his draft season, Schwindt scored 12 goals and added five assists in 68 regular season games with Steelheads. He also collected two helpers in nine postseason games, but it wasn’t enough to get his name called at the NHL Draft at Bell Centre in Montreal.
In his second turn with Mississauga, Schwindt played in 67 regular season games and found the back of the net 12 times again while collecting 13 assists, increasing his point total by eight, and amassing 51 PIM. He scored a goal and added an assist in the Steelheads’ six-game playoff loss to the North Bay Battalion.
After another impressive showing at Florida’s camps. Schwindt made his AHL debut on October 22. 2023, and went scoreless in a road game against the Toronto Marlies. He played six games with the ECHL’s Florida Everblades, where he picked up his first professional assist, before returning to the OHL and joining the Sarnia Sting, who acquired his rights from the Steelheads on November 18.
He played 33 games in his final season of major junior with the Sting, scoring 13 goals and ten assists, an average of .696 points per game, while racking up 30 penalty minutes.
Schwindt spent the vast majority of the 2024-25 season developing in the ECHL with the Savannah Ghost Pirates. He finished his first pro campaign with eight goals, 19 points, 36 PIM and a minus-three rating. One of his goals came on the power play and one came while shorthanded. He played one game with the Checkers on April 13, going minus-one against the Utica Comets.
Last season saw Schwindt move up a rung to the AHL. After sitting out Charlotte’s first two games, he was inserted into the lineup against the Iowa Wild on October 17 and collected his first two points in the league with a goal and an assist in a 6-2 win. Unfortunately, his debut was the highlight of his second pro year. He scored his only other goal of the campaign on December 16 versus the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and then had an assist four days later in a game against the Springfield Thunderbirds to build his only scoring streak. Schwindt failed to put up a point in his last 14 games played. He ended up appearing in 33 games and totaled two goals, five assists and 6 PIM, and did not take part in the Checkers first-round playoff loss to the Thunderbirds.
Schwindt is a big winger with a fourth line mentality and fourth line skills. His goal for 2026-27 is to carve out a bigger role with the Checkers and get in more games. Now aged 22, Schwindt has been in the pipeline for three years and will become a restricted free agent at the end of the season. He will need to show considerable improvement to earn a second contract with the Panthers.