Tag: Kaedan Korczak Page 1 of 6

2026 VGK Free Agency Tracker

On July 1, 2026

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

A roundup of all the signings, rumors, and rumblings surrounding the Vegas Golden Knights as free agency opens in advance of the 2026-27 season.

*This article will be updated throughout the day as more information rolls in.*

Pavel Dorofeyev has been traded to the New York Rangers for 2026 1st Round pick (#26), 2026 3rd round pick (#96), and a 2028 top-10 protected 1st round pick.
- The Rangers signed Dorofeyev to a 7-year $11 million AAV contract extension.
Akira Schmid has been traded to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a 2028 3rd round pick.
The Golden Knights have acquired defenseman Parker Wotherspoon in exchange for Kaedan Korczak.
- Pittsburgh will retain 50% of Wotherspoon’s salary, making his cap hit for VGK $500,000.
Jeremy Lauzon has agreed to a 6-year contract extension with AAV of $4 million. (Source: @FriedgeHNIC)
Rasmus Andersson is expected to sign a long-term extension with VGK worth around $8.5 million AAV. (Source: SinBin.vegas)
- Elliotte Friedman confirms the deal has been signed for seven-years at $8.5 million AAV. (Source: @FriedgeHNIC)
VGK are signing Victor Olofsson. (Source: @DarrenDreger)
The Golden Knights have traded Keegan Kolesar to the Detroit Red Wings for a 2029 3rd round pick and a 2027 7th round pick. (Source: @DarrenDreger)
Carl Lindbom re-signed for three years at $900,000 AAV.
Jonas Rondbjerg will sign a one-year extension to remain in Las Vegas. (Source: @DannyWebster21)
Colton Sissons is signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs (@thefourthperiod)
Cole Smith has signed a three-year contract with $3 million AAV with the Chicago Blackhawks. (Source: @frank_seravalli)
VGK have re-signed Tanner Laczynski to a three-year contract worth $900,000 AAV. (@PuckPedia)
VGK signed Marc Gatcomb, Adam Ginning, Ville Heinola, and Antti Tuomisto (Source: Golden Knights Press Release)
Kelly McCrimmon said Alex Pietrangelo will not play in 2026-27. He has been placed on LTIR.

Former VGK players

Erik Haula is signing with the Los Angeles Kings. (Source: @JamesNicholsNHL)
Paul Cotter has signed with the Vancouver Canucks. (Source: @Canucks)
Teddy Blueger signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs for two-years $2.5 million AAV. (@PuckPedia)

Simplified Salary Cap Tracker

VGK are approximately $5,300,000 UNDER the salary cap with an 18-man roster (9 F, 6 D, 2 G)
- Marner, Eichel, Stone, Hertl, Karlsson, Barbashev, Dowd, Howden, Bowman – $61,525,000
- Andersson, Theodore, Hanifin, Lauzon, McNabb, Wotherspoon – $31,425,000
- Hill, Hart – $8,250,000
Qualifying Offers – Jakub Brabenec, Lukas Cormier, Jakub Demek, Joe Fleming
Expected LTIR – Pietrangelo ($8,800,000)

**This is an inexact salary estimation designed to give a rough outline of how much cap space the Golden Knights have to operate with. For exact up-to-date salary cap information, visit PuckPedia.com.**

KAEDAN KORCZAK TRADED TO PITTSBURGH FOR PARKER WOTHERSPOON

By Ken Boehlke

On June 30, 2026

In Breaking News

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

The Golden Knights have traded defenseman Kaedan Korczak to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for defenseman Parker Wotherspoon. Pittsburgh retains 50% of Wotherspoon’s contract which makes his cap hit in Vegas $500,000 for one season.

Wotherspoon is a 28-year-old left-handed stay-at-home defenseman who played heavy minutes with the Penguins last season. Partnered with Erik Karlsson he logged more than 20 minutes per night and was one of Pittsburgh’s top penalty killers.

Wotherspoon scored three goals and 27 assists in 80 games, all career highs in the NHL, last season.

https://x.com/SinBinVegas/status/2072033975846224120

Cassidy Frustrated With Veteran D-Core’s Struggles Against Heavy Forecheck

By Ken Boehlke

On March 7, 2026

In Team Ops

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

The Golden Knights have spent a lot of time, money, and assets rebuilding their defense after a career-ending injury to Alex Pietrangelo.

Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb have been asked to step into the first pair role. VGK spent major assets to bring in Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson. They swapped Nic Hague out for Jeremy Lauzon and have tasked Kaedan Korczak to fill Zach Whitecloud’s shoes.

It hasn’t gone as swimmingly as the Golden Knights would have hoped, but it certainly has not been bad. VGK currently rank 3rd in shots allowed per game, yet sit in 19th in goals against. Some of the blame, maybe most, lies at the feet of the goaltending, however, the new-look defense have had some issues themselves.

A specific issue they’ve struggled with recently cropped up once again last night against the Wild as they allowed three goals in a little more than three minutes.

The first one’s a tough one. There’s miscommunication, they get a breakaway, and they score. Not the end of the world, we’re playing fine. But the next two we had pucks below the goal line to break out. We didn’t execute. That was a big problem all night. Big problem. -Bruce Cassidy

Golden Knights’ Signature Resiliency Suddenly Vanishing

By Ken Boehlke

On January 3, 2026

In Game Analysis

(Photo Credit: @StLouisBlues on X/Twitter)

One of the hallmarks of Golden Knights hockey has been resiliency. Through each of the first nine seasons, they’ve been a tough team to extend leads on. To start the 2025-26 season, they were continuing to build on that pattern.

In the first 32 games of the season, VGK trailed by more than two goals on just four occasions, and half of them were because of a late empty net goal. They allowed three straight goals just six times in those 32 games.

However, in the last seven games, it has taken a turn for the worse.

It all started on the road in Calgary. VGK fell into 2-0 hole early, scored one to get it back to 2-1, but then conceded three more times to go behind 5-1. It was the first time all season they had fallen behind by four goals without allowing an empty netter. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.

Golden Knights Sit In NHL’s Basement For Scoring From Defensemen

By Ken Boehlke

On November 10, 2025

In Stats

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

In the 3rd period Saturday night, the Golden Knights applied wave after wave of pressure to the Anaheim Ducks as they chased the game-tying goal. Typically, that goal has come from Pavel Dorofeyev, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, or Ivan Barbashev, the guys Vegas typically lean on to do the bulk of the scoring. But on Saturday, it was Kaedan Korczak who stepped up and buried a shot from the slot to even the score and ultimately help VGK earn a point in a game they entered the final period trailing by multiple goals.

Goals from unlikely places have been a rarity for the Golden Knights. Forwards Brandon Saad, Keegan Kolesar, Colton Sissons, and Alex Holtz are all still looking for their first goal of the season, while Cole Reinhardt and Reilly Smith have one goal apiece, and Smith’s came on an empty net in OT in San Jose.

Maybe the bigger issue, though, is from another group.

We would like more secondary scoring from our defense, and other people in our lineup. -Bruce Cassidy

This year, Golden Knights defensemen have scored two goals and 17 points in VGK’s 14 games. Only the Florida Panthers have received fewer goals, and no team has scored fewer points than the Golden Knights. To further illustrate Vegas’ lack of production from the back end, just 13.5% of the team’s points have come from defensemen; the next lowest team in the league is Detroit with 19.5%, and no other team is under 21%. The league-leading Capitals have received a whopping 31.6% of their team’s points from blue liners.

Best Gifs To Start The 2025-26 Season

By Ken Boehlke

On October 21, 2025

In Team Ops

Yet again, the Golden Knights are off to a red-hot start under Bruce Cassidy. This year’s team is scoring goals at an incredible rate, too. That makes for a lot of fun gifs. Here are the best ones from the first two weeks of the year.

Click through to see the rest, and be patient, it takes a while for them all to load properly.

VGK Looking To Do With Korczak What They Successfully Did With Hague And Whitecloud

By Ken Boehlke

On August 22, 2025

In Personnel

(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)

The Golden Knights do not have a long history of handing over starting positions to young players coming up through the pipeline. One place they have had success though, is the same place they are looking for it again this season, on defense.

Kaedan Korczak has played just 77 games in the NHL, including his career-best 40 games, last year. This summer, he signed a new four-year $3.25 million AAV contract that starts in 2026-27, which has him slated to outearn Zach Whitecloud and be right on the heels of Brayden McNabb, indicating the belief in Korczak is strong. With the departures of Alex Pietrangelo and Nic Hague, Korczak’s spot in the starting lineup appears to be a lock for all 82 games, assuming health.

This isn’t an unfamiliar spot for the Golden Knights, though. In fact, they made moves just like they did this offseason to pave the way for both Hague and Whitecloud to have permanent positions in the starting lineup in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Hague’s opportunity came first, in VGK’s 3rd season. The trade of Colin Miller to the Buffalo Sabres opened up a spot that was tailor-made for Hague to step into. His entry-level contract helped the newly cap-crunched Golden Knights to fit under the cap after adding Paul Stastny, Max Pacioretty, and Mark Stone the season prior. Hague would go on to play 34 of the first 48 games before Gerard Gallant was fired.

The next year, after reaching the conference final, VGK made the big move to bring in Alex Pietrangelo. That meant Nate Schmidt, who had been Vegas’ top defenseman for the past few years, was off to Winnipeg, and Jon Merrill was allowed to leave in free agency. It left a group of five veteran defensemen (Pietrangelo, McNabb, Martinez, Theodore, Holden) and the two young bucks (Hague, Whitecloud).

Whitecloud had earned the trust of new head coach, Pete DeBoer, quickly. He went from having not played an NHL game the entire season under Gallant to starting every one of VGK’s last 16 regular season games before the COVID pause and then all 20 in the playoffs.

His minute load increased rapidly, too. In his first three games, he played fewer than 14 minutes, which happened just twice in the 20 playoff games later that same year. Heading into the following year, he was a lock to start on Opening Night.

So, heading into Year 4, there was one spot guaranteed for Whitecloud and another spot we later learned they again planned for Hague. It always looked as though Nick Holden was going to hold down the final spot in the starting lineup, but the cap crunch struck again, and the team ended up waiving Holden to open the season, again, putting the faith into the hands of the youngsters. From there, both Hague and Whitecloud took the starting jobs and never let go.

The arc of Korczak is similar, which should allow us to use the first full season in a starting role for both Hague and Whitecloud to project Korczak’s season.

Both players were given limited and sheltered minutes early in the season. As mentioned before, Whitecloud’s minute load rose quickly, the same was the case for Hague. He played fewer than 15 minutes in seven of the first 10 games, but then failed to reach 15 minutes in just three of the next 28.

21-year-old Hague played most of his games on the 3rd pair alongside 25-year-old Shea Theodore, while 24-year-old Whitecloud was given a 3rd pair spot alongside his AHL partner for the previous few years, now 22-year-old Hague.

Both Hague and Whitecloud posted essentially team-average advanced analytics defensively. They were each slightly above 50% in Corsi and expected goal share, which mimicked the team numbers.

So, to project forward for Korczak, he’ll likely find himself needing to earn Cassidy’s trust early to see his minute load increase. He’s likely to play with 28-year-old Jeremy Lauzon, and if he can follow in the footsteps of the last two before him, he should hold up just fine in the 3rd pair role.

The Golden Knights have had success paving the way for young blueliners. They fully expect good things from Korczak this season, and history appears to back them up.