The Golden Knights have agreed to send forward Evgenii Dadonov to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for the contract of injured defenseman Shea Weber.
Weber fought through multiple injuries in 2020-21 leading him to miss the entirety of the 2021-22 season. He is not expected to ever be healthy enough to play again.
Thus, Weber’s salary of $7.85 million which was acquired by the Golden Knights will be placed on long-term injured reserve. (This means a few things for VGK of which we will explain in an upcoming article.) The contract runs through 2025-26, or the next four seasons.
In exchange, the Golden Knights clear $5 million of (more useable) cap space by shedding Evgenii Dadonov.
Richie-Rich
Good move by McIdiot. He has to clear some cap. Not sure Foley likes to pick up a dead contract for $7.85 million. But, sooner or later Foley is going to get tired of his shit and can him. Should have already, but I digress.
the hockey God
R R “good move” by “idiot” ? Oxymoronic sentence.
VGK did this in season one with a few players that never played and were injured long term, was it a “good move” by “idiot ” then , or just now ??
George L.
Dadonov is going to get whiplash from the boomerang
Hunter
Wasn’t Montreal on his “No Trade List”?
Bobby
Was Lehner included also?
Obvious
The only player who scored consistently and fat bastard ships him out. Laughable
This shit show is a gift that just keeps givin
Priceless
knights fan in minny
you are the bitter king
Tim
Maybe I don’t get this Ken maybe you can explain it to a country boy like me. Dadonov had 20 goals and stayed healthy I don’t get why we didn’t get a decent draft pick for him. More confusing is taking the Weber contract if he never will play what did we gain? So we gave up a 5 million dollar player for nothing to take a 7.85 million dollar contract for a guy who won’t ever play or is there some cap benefits involved that I’m not aware of? There must be some logic here that I’m not seeing.
SMH
Tim, I’m sure that Ken will further explain this all in the days to come, but here are a few key points:
(1) Dadonov is not worth $5M salary / cap space. There is no team in the NHL who would give up anything to acquire him at that price tag. Think back to the trade deadline last year when we were going to have to give Anaheim a 2nd round draft pick (as well as pick up the contracts of injured players) in order to move him. To me, that trade getting voided now looks like a blessing in disguise, as we do not lose the 2nd round pick in this new trade. Trust me (and Ken), trading Dadonov without having to attach assets is an unexpected win for VGK.
(2) Sure, Dadonov is a decent player (though not at $5M), but bottom line is we are over the salary cap for the upcoming season, and have to make moves to get under it, particularly if we want to retain some key free agents both unrestricted & restricted (Smith, Roy, Hague, etc.). In a salary cap league, the cost of acquiring talent (esp. Eichel @ $10M) means other players have to go to gain cap compliance. This is a fact of life, and most other successful NHL teams have to play the same game each year.
(3) The beauty of acquiring Weber’s contract is that he can be placed on long term injured reserve each season of his remaining deal, and thus does not count at all vs. the salary cap. Now, he still gets paid real (not cap) dollars to some extent for the contract he signed, but my understanding is a lot of that is covered by insurance. However, kudos to Foley for reaching into his own pocket to pay the difference to Weber over the next several years. Apparently there will be some relatively minor impact on VGK while stashing Weber on LTIR which Ken will detail in the near future, but the most important takeaway is we open up Dadonov’s $5M of salary cap space without adding any incoming salary cap impact.
(4) Many of the posters on this site are so knee-jerk with their hatred towards the VGK front office, that they don’t take the time to fully understand the move and then make an objective decision with reasonable commentary about pros or cons. I respect you & your post for asking for more information to better understand the logic of what’s going on. Those that like to bitch & moan about every single thing will continue to do so – but perhaps they should take a step back and consider (a) after 5 years, this is still arguably the most successful expansion team in the history of sports, and (b) after a disappointing, injury-plagued season, it’s all about what VGK does moving forwards to right the ship. In my opinion, this trade is one of the things that had to be done, and after researching & understanding the overall impact (pending further detailed commentary from Ken), I give the front office strong congrats here (as well as for the Cassidy hire).
knights fan in minny
love it SMH
Tim
SMH, you answered but didn’t answer my question if that makes sense. I get Dadonov decent player not worth 5 million but I still don’t get the cap money we save by taking the Weber contract. We save 5 million on Dadonov do we benefit cap wise from the Weber 7.85 contract besides the 5 million we free up with Dadonov?
TS
Absolutely! Thanks for being a positive voice.. there’s enough bitching from others! I’m looking forward to the new coach– fresh start for the team. Hopefully Davis will improve on the team’s deficits, as he had stated before.
Pistol Pete
To boot SMH, the pissers and moaners never seemed to contemplate how complimentary they would have been of acquiring Dadonov had he more closely lived up to the 27G/year he averaged with FLA. Turns out Quenneville may have had a clue if he was involved in the trade to OTT but one can’t blame McPhee and McCrimmon for trying Dadonov, but then all these would be GM fans seemed to have known better? Not. Instead they point their fingers when Dadonov did not quite deliver his FLA type numbers. Monday morning Qbacking per usual.
Scotty
I believe there’s a cap benefit to this, we put him on LTIR, we only pay $2.85M & save $5Mill
Original 6 ✅
Tim i’m with u I see it exactly how you do and Foley stuck paying more cash for nobody when anyone on his list might of took him even for a future consideration ! Now realistic knights fans end up paying for this move. they will raise cost of beer or seats to eat it.
knights fan in minny
you can always go watch badminton
Hdbiker7851
There has to be more to this than what is just posted. Vegas ward – send us your lam, injured, crippled, and crazies we will take the in – has Foley lost his marbles- it sure appears so.
the hockey God
did the Clowns in NHL clearing dept. get them memo this time and check the contracts on file ?Or will they reject the trade again ? Can’t believe anyone would have a canadian team on their trade list due to high taxes they pay, losing avout 40% of their earnings due to the fact that canadians are socialist moes who seem to like to pay a lot in taxes and get little in return. Oh yeah, free health care, which they don’ use because the quality is poor, the wait is long, and getting quality care in USA is choice of people who can afford it.
Mark
Damn, best post I’ve ever seen. That tyrant that runs that country is a scumbag and your right, the taxes suck. I’d rather play for a team in Florida, Texas or here. You save millions in taxes.
knights fan in minny
you can always go watch badminton
Mark
Question ? Are we paying players not to play? Reminds of the movie, “Fabulous Baker Boys” when the lounge manager was paying Jeff and Beau Bridges not to play.