He’s not the most popular player but last night even the most critical Golden Knights fans had to feel happy for Evgenii Dadonov. In his first game “back” the 33-year-old forward scored Vegas’ third goal of the game and is now tied for the second most on the team.
Dadonov began a flurry of three total Golden Knights power play goals. The crowd roared when #63 backhanded a loose rebound into the net and his teammates wrapped him in a tight group hug on the ice.
I felt that support from the stands. Probably pumped me up even more. I always loved playing here… Great experience playing here in front of this crowd. Still think it’s the best fans in the league. -Dadonov
In the end the trade was voided and Dadonov is back in line with the rest of his Vegas teammates. However, this messy deadline incident will not go away. Player protection clarity will be a future topic of conversation with league officials. The NHL never wants this to never happen again.
I think there’s going to be some fallout. They are going to be talking about this at the GM meetings. A no-trade list is submitted solely between a player agent and the club. The league does not keep track of no trade list, the NHLPA doesn’t. Which by the way, is crazy. –Pierre LeBrun on TSN
Clearly, there were miscommunications from several parties and it wasn’t the league’s finest moment. On a spotlight day like the NHL trade deadline the eventually voided Dadonov deal led headlines. The league would rather make player protection awareness a more streamlined and transparent process.
Then Minnesota Wild, VGK’s opponent tonight, have acquired Marc-Andre Fleury from the Chicago Blackhawks for a 2nd round pick that could become a 1st. (Source: @frank_seravalli)
He is expected to back-up for the Wild tonight. (Source: @sarah__mclellan)
Derrick Pouliot was claimed off waivers by Seattle. (Source: @FriedgeHNIC)
GM Kelly McCrimmon will hold a press conference at 2:30 PM today whether the Golden Knights make a move or not. (Source: Golden Knights)
That’s how the Golden Knights approached the offseason. That’s how the Golden Knights entered the season. And that’s how the Golden Knights looked at the opportunity to trade for Jack Eichel. But that’s not how the Golden Knights should be looking at the upcoming trade deadline.
Riding a three-game losing streak, a 4-8-1 record since Mark Stone was placed on LTIR, and a 10-12-4 run since the calendar flipped to 2022, it’s time for a true reality check on where this season is headed.
The Golden Knights started last night’s game missing eight players from their regular lineup and then saw Max Pacioretty exit in the 2nd period with what is his fourth separate injury absence this season. Vegas does not have a single player who has played in every one of the team’s first 60 games and they have only rostered the same lineup in consecutive games on six occasions this year.
Health is obviously the greatest concern for this team and no matter how optimistic a person wants to be, it seems inevitable that the 2021-22 Golden Knights are never going to be operating at full strength.
So, that brings us to the players that are on the ice. Quite frankly, they look nothing like a Stanley Cup contender. Heck, they don’t even look like a team that belongs in the playoffs. Injured or not, if you have legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, you can’t spend two months getting waxed by legitimate playoff teams while playing 1-goal games, that you’re often on the wrong side of, against teams vying for lottery balls.
Each and every season the Golden Knights have been in existence, they’ve been buyers at the trade deadline. The past four seasons, they’ve traded away a total of eight picks in the first three rounds to acquire the likes of Tomas Tatar, Mark Stone, Alec Martinez, Robin Lehner, Nick Cousins, and Mattias Janmark. This year, they continued their buying streak giving up another 1st, a 1st round prospect in Peyton Krebs, and Alex Tuch for Jack Eichel.
So, in total, just during the season, Vegas has sent out:
Now as the deadline approaches, they very well may buy again. But they shouldn’t, and in fact, if anything, they should sell. A cold, hard, realistic approach is required at this trade deadline.
This season, diehard VGK fan and legendary combat sports columnist Kevin Iole will be delivering columns a few times a month on Sundays. Kevin’s back today to take a look at a position of depth, one that’s been notoriously thin in years past.
Over the next 40 or so days, George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon will spend most of their waking hours trying to figure how to ship out a highly paid player or three without destroying the Golden Knights’ chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
If Jack Eichel plays in the regular season, that means there are significant pieces of this team that won’t be part of a potential Cup run.
That’s life in a salary cap world.
But they’re also going to need to keep an eye on the future, because they know as well as anyone it is unsustainable trying to make a franchise a consistent Cup contender via trades and via agency.
It’s imperative that they mine the draft and land some impact players. Contrary to popular opinion, there are impact players chosen in nearly every draft after the first round and in a lot of cases, after the first three rounds.
(Photo Credit: Ken Boehlke, SinBin.vegas)
Two of the three Golden Knights’ representatives at the 2022 All-Star Game fit that criteria. Jonathan Marchessault was undrafted, while Mark Stone was picked in the sixth round in 2010 by Ottawa.
Stone was chosen higher than Dallas’ Joe Pavelski, though, who was a seventh-round pick by San Jose way back in 2003. Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov and Anaheim’s Troy Terry were products of the fifth round of the 2015 draft. And Kaprizov’s Wild teammate, goalkeeper Cam Talbot, went undrafted.
If you go back, nearly every draft has impact players taken late.
The point of this is that if the Golden Knights are to remain an annual Cup contender, they’re going to have to replenish the system through the draft and hit on some players late. It’s the only way to compete when you’re paying top talents like Eichel, Stone, and Alex Pietrangelo.
It’s possible several big names will be dealt on or before the NHL’s trade deadline day this year. One team we expect to be sitting this one out is the Golden Knights, unless they are sellers, but that’s for another day. The local club already made their deadline deal in November by trading for center Jack Eichel. When you consider they’ll also be getting Max Pacioretty and Alec Martinez back from injury, you could argue Vegas already won the deadline.
So, while the trade deadline may be boring for VGK fans it could be very busy for other fanbases. Specifically, teams that’ll have to face Vegas in the postseason. Some of those teams have lofty goals as well but most likely they’re not getting to the finals without going through Vegas first.
Edmonton
The Oilers are in trouble. The club isn’t scoring and they’re rapidly dropping in the standings. Even before Connor McDavid tested positive for COVID, the Oilers went on a miserable stretch scoring six goals in five games with a goal differential of -14. Currently, they’re on a five-game dip and are having a hard time digging out of it. Scoring is one problem up in Edmonton but it’s not their biggest.
It’s a brutal mistake. What are you going to do? Call it what it is. We’re playing well, and it’s a brutal mistake. Our goaltending wasn’t very good, and we didn’t get enough pucks to the net to get back in the game. -Dave Tippett, Oilers coach
With McDavid and Leon Draisital, the goals will eventually come but stopping them is a bigger concern. Tippett’s frustrations came out poorly, pointing his finger directly at goalie Mikko Koskinen. Which wasn’t taken well.
It’s not nice for anybody to be thrown under the bus. But this is how it goes in this business. When the team loses, it’s either coach or goalie who gets sacrificed. I have to be better, but at the same time we scored seven goals in my last six losses. I can’t score goals. It’s not only about goaltending when it comes to winning and losing. -Koskinen, Oilers goaltender
It’s understandable why Koskinen was iritated by his coach’s comments and good for him for responding but he should’ve kept it shorter. Now there a speculations that the goaltender has lost Edmonton’s locker room. So on top of his bloated 3.19 goals allowed average he’s creating friction. Bottom line is the Oilers are in the market for a goaltender. And surprise, surprise the biggest name on the market is tonight’s opponents netminder.
Fleury — who has a 10-team no-trade list — might be the biggest netminder name out there if available and none of the above teams has as great a need, or as much urgency to address it, as the Oilers. If Fleury was open to going to Edmonton, finding the right price could be tricky. He’s a rental and, presumably, the Hawks would need to retain cap space on his $7 million tag, so that could add an asset. With the other needs in Edmonton’s lineup, paying up for a rental at any position may not be the chosen course. But if you want someone who you could feel good about making a difference now, Fleury is it. -Rory Boylen, Sportsnet
Elliott Friedman also wrote about Fleury being an option, if the right deal was in place. The former face of the Golden Knights knows the division and has won in the West. Since 2017, the first year Blackhawk is 43-21-7 against the Pacific division and an overall record of 83-16-9 against Western Conference clubs. Fleury’s presence alone would immediately improve the problems in net for the Oilers.
With the acquisition of Mattias Janmark and a few other changes to the starting lineup, Vegas looked like a different team on Wednesday. They were flying all over the ice, creating scoring chances at will, and finished the game with six goals, chasing a multiple Cup-winning goalie.
It’s part of a four-game winning streak and with the schedule set up pretty nicely, it appears like a good time for the Golden Knights to rip off seven or eight in a row.
Sound familiar for this time of the season?
Last year with the team trading for Alec Martinez, Robin Lehner, and Nick Cousins while subtracting Cody Eakin from the lineup the Golden Knights were in the middle of a five-game win streak when the deadline hit. They pushed that to eight and had won 11 of 13 prior to the Pause.
In 2018-19, right after they added Mark Stone, Vegas stormed off on a six-game winning streak. That streak stopped ever so briefly before they extended it to 10 wins in 11 games
The first year there wasn’t exactly a winning streak like the previous two, but from mid-February to mid-March, wrapped around the deadline, the Golden Knights won nine of 14.
But, despite those little deadline-inspired runs, Vegas is probably hoping for a bit different outcome down the stretch this year than they’ve seen in their first three seasons.
In Year 1 the Golden Knights coasted to the finish line winning just five of their final 10 games. Year 2 saw essentially a collapse as Vegas won just three of the final 10. Then last year, the Golden Knights were winning on the ice, but couldn’t maintain health off it. Pandemic aside, Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, and Chandler Stephenson were all hampered with injuries that could have led to a rough finish to the season had it not been cut short.
The Golden Knights have 14 games remaining in the regular season as they sit four points out of first place with a game in hand. 10 of the 14 are against teams with a sub .500 points percentage and 12 of the 14 against teams with more losses than wins on their season record.
No matter what Colorado does, the schedule is set up very nicely for Vegas to storm into the playoffs on a major hot streak. Usually, teams that do that continue on when they get there.
The NHL Trade Deadline is at Noon Pacific time today. The Golden Knights have indicated they are not expecting to make many moves, but it’s not really in the DNA of the guys in charge to do nothing.
This article will be dedicated to all pertinent news surrounding the Golden Knights and this year’s deadline. It will be updated throughout the day.
Mattias Janmark appears to be headed to Vegas. (Source: @PierreVLeBrun)
The Golden Knights have acquired Janmark and a 5th for a 2nd and a 3rd. (@DarrenDreger)
It appears that 5th round pick VGK got is actually heading to San Jose as a salary broker for a minor league. (@PierreVLeBrun)
The Golden Knights were reportedly “lurking” on both Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno. (Source: @emilymkaplan)
“I believe the Vegas Golden Knights had strong interest in Taylor Hall, but by the time Vegas got to a point where Adams (Buffalo GM) was willing to take that to Taylor Hall, he felt fairly strongly that he wanted to do to Boston.” -Darren Dreger on TSN TradeCentre
“We’re in this position by choice. It’s what we wanted to do with our roster. We like our roster, and I believe our approach will be quite different based on that.” -Kelly McCrimmon on March 19th (Source: LVRJ)
Patrick Brown has been placed on LTIR. (Source: SinBin.vegas)
GM Kelly McCrimmon will hold a press conference at 3:00 PM today whether the Golden Knights make a move or not. (Source: Golden Knights)
It’s trade deadline day, and in a few long hours, we’ll know the roster the Golden Knights will bring into the playoffs on their run for a Stanley Cup in year four of the franchise.
Deadline day is great because it’s one of the few days where hope truly springs eternal for all teams. Winning teams look for their clubs to add the final piece to the puzzle, middling teams hope for the blockbuster that changes the season, and the bottomfeeders wave the white flag and focus on a brighter future.
In Vegas, the deadline has been a day for celebration all three seasons. From Tomas Tatar to Mark Stone to Robin Lehner and Alec Martinez, the Golden Knights have swung for the fences each and every year.
Unfortunately, to this point, none of these trades have been that one missing element to help the Golden Knights lift the Cup, but that certainly doesn’t mean they haven’t had an impact on the team.
This year feels different though. This year the Golden Knights sit in a clear playoff position and have a reasonable argument to stake their claim amongst the league’s elites. They’ve raced out to an impressive 27-11-2 record, hardly ever lose at home, and they have a roster that on paper stacks up with anyone in the league. But, they are also so close to the salary cap that they can’t even afford to replace an injured player without placing him on LTIR. They’ve played multiple games shorthanded and understand that any trade must include money and players going out.
However, history tells us George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon aren’t exactly big fans of sitting on their hands at the deadline. In three seasons with Vegas, they’ve made eight trades either on or within a week of the deadline. They’ve been involved in a headline move four times and have sent away just two players off their every-day starting lineup.
That’s such a short history though, so we wanted to dig a little deeper. Current GM, McCrimmon, has only held this role in Vegas, so we have to focus on the current President of Hockey Operations, McPhee.
He has been in the head seat for 19 previous deadlines. He has made at least one trade in 16 of them. He’s made multiple trades in 12, and 10 of the last 13. However, it’s the other side of the coin we’re more interested in today, the years he stood pat.
He did that with the Washington Capitals three times in 16 seasons at the helm. Those seasons were 2011-12, 2008-09, and 1999-00. We’ll start with the most recent, in which McPhee was quoted after the deadline saying this…
**Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Famer, Steve Carp’s returns to SinBin.vegas for the 2021 season. His weekly column publishes every Sunday during the Golden Knights season and is brought to you by the Jimmerson Law Firm.**
When the week began, my original inclination was to draw a conclusion that the Golden Knights problem with their offense isn’t with their bottom six, but rather their top six.
Actually, make that top seven as I’ll include Alex Tuch in the conversation.
Then the Knights scored six goals Monday against St. Louis. Problem solved, right?
Not exactly.
The top guns went back into cold storage Wednesday in the 3-1 loss to the Blues. So the angle was back in play.
Or was it?
Friday, the Knights scored a season-high seven goals in defeating Arizona, 7-4. Reilly Smith got two of them. Jonathan Marchessault, Chandler Stephenson, and Max Pacioretty also scored. The line of Smith, Marchessault, and William Karlsson combined for six points.
I left The Fortress a bit confused. Was what I had witnessed an actual wake-up by Smith and the guys? Or was it a tease and we’ll see them go back into hibernation?
I’m still not sure what to believe. Smith has always been a streaky scorer. He’ll be in deep freeze for weeks. Suddenly, he’ll be wielding a hot stick and he’ll be scoring with regularity. However, I’ve learned to never give up on him. He’s too good a competitor to stay off the scoresheet forever. And when Marchessault, that little ball of hate, gets his juices flowing, that line becomes dangerous once again.
That brings us to today’s rematch with the Coyotes and what may be the most important 24 hours of the season so far. If you read ‘Yotes coach Rick Tocchet’s postgame comments Friday, you know he was a very unhappy boss. He basically called his team out for allowing the Knights to jump them and build a 5-0 lead. Yes, his team sort of responded with a bit of push in the third period, but it wasn’t close to being enough to overcome the hole they had dug for themselves.
I will be absolutely shocked if the ‘Yotes don’t come out angry and flying this afternoon, looking to make a statement. They are fighting for their playoff lives as they are currently one point behind the Blues for the fourth and final West Division playoff berth and they figure to play with a great amount of desperation.
My concern is will the Knights match that desperation? Will they play with jump, with purpose, and with intensity? Will they not hang Marc-Andre Fleury out to dry against Phil Kessel, Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller, and Connor Garland, Arizona’s primary weapons?
Most important, will the top six build off Friday’s performance and will Tuch, who last scored a goal March 13 and has one tally in his last 17 contests, find the back of the net?
There’s another facet to today’s game. The NHL trade deadline is 24 hours away. Kelly McCrimmon has publicly stated he doesn’t expect the team to make a big splash by noon Monday. But Colorado got better Saturday in upgrading its goaltending with the acquisition of Devan Dubnyk from San Jose and Joe Sakic may not be done dealing. The Avalanche currently reside atop the West Division with a four-point lead on the Knights, who have a game in hand on Colorado. The two teams have two more meetings remaining later this month — both in Las Vegas.
The Knights had organizational meetings in town earlier this week to explore all their options. Remember, they’re up against the salary cap so they’re going to have to get real creative if they want to swing a major deal. Even a secondary trade may require some heavy lifting, depending on who is involved.
If I’m GMKM, I’m watching today’s match with more than the usual interest. It’s up to him, and Prez George, to determine if there’s enough offense to beat Colorado and/or Minnesota, then be able to score often enough to win the Stanley Cup.
**Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Famer, Steve Carp’s returns to SinBin.vegas for the 2021 season. His weekly column publishes every Sunday during the Golden Knights season and is brought to you by the Jimmerson Law Firm.**
Welcome to Anxiety Week.
It’s that time of the year where if you’re an NHL player, you start hearing rumors that you’ll be moved at the trade deadline. You get texts from friends. Your wife or girlfriend asks you what’s up. Your kids, if they’re old enough, are freaked out at the idea they may have to move and leave their friends and have to go to a new school.
Anxious? You bet.
For a lot of NHL players, they need not be worried. Some have no-move clauses in their contracts or, if you’re someone like Marc-Andre Fleury, have a list of teams they would agree to be traded to.
But for others, this is a tough week. The trade deadline is eight days away (April 12) and trying to maintain one’s focus on their job is not an easy task. Especially if your team is currently struggling and change is imminent.
The stock answer players give when asked if they’re worried about being shipped out is “It’s out of my hands” or “I don’t worry about things I have no control over” both of which are true. They understand the business side of the game and let’s not fret over where their next meal is coming from because everyone is well compensated for their services. If they have to go to Detroit or Ottawa, so be it. They’ll pack their stuff, head to the next destination, and try to quickly assimilate within their new team.
For the Golden Knights players, being moved on or before the April 12 deadline is even more disconcerting. You’d be leaving a team that is built to compete for the Stanley Cup, was leading its division for most of the season, and has been one of the best in the entire NHL since Opening Night. Can you imagine how bummed a player would be if he got a call from Kelly McCrimmon and he tells you you’ve been traded to Buffalo?
It could happen, to pretty much anyone. Especially given the recent events of this week that have seen Vegas drop three in a row, fail to hold the lead in the 3rd period, and a power play that has been more dismal than what we’ve come to expect.
First up, I (Ken) take my shot at guessing what the Golden Knights will do this summer. New contracts for the RFAs, a blockbuster trade, and a nearly $4 million UFA coming in.
