Olden McGroin
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- Aug 1, 2009
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NHL 2023-2024 Out of Town: Regular Season IV
- Thread starter smithformeragent
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22Brad Park
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KnightofBoston
Registered User
Two of the most mismanaged teams in the NHL. It’s incredible. They’re the Arizona of the East.
If the bruins landed as many top ten picks as the sabres the last 10 years they’d be a juggernaut by now
KnightofBoston
Registered User
Hey man it is what it is. Every year the bruins contended most here would clamor and clamor for big deadline deals. Swing for the fences Donny. He made excellent deadline trades in 2019 and it nearly pushed us all the way to a cup. Coyle is still here and a big part of why we are still competitive.
Last year they looked like world beaters already and then he added three great on paper and eye test players in orlov Bertuzzi and Hathaway. The bruins should have pulled off one in in those last three games but they didn’t and their victors went on to the finals.
The NHL is a tough league, tomorrow is never promised. It’s just the nature of the beast. I’ve made my peace with it being for entertainment and not putting too much stock anymore into the final results. Just enjoy the games and find ways to enjoy your team whether they be bottom of the barrel or cream of the crop. Otherwise, plenty of other things to do. I’ve become an avid gardener in the off season.
Alan Ryan
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- Jun 1, 2006
- 9,075
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Exactly how I feel about the Bruins. They are an outstanding organization these days and I enjoy the journey whether they win or lose.
BruinsFanMike82
Registered User
I would have been *very* interested in Forsling had he made it to free agency. A really nice deal for the Panthers...
Nice post. After last year it's the only way to look at things IMO.
Sheppy
Registered User
Granger: Love it or hate it, the Golden Knights’ bold strategy deserves respect
By Jesse Granger
Mar 9, 2024
144
LAS VEGAS — A scintillating trade-deadline week in Las Vegas had barely concluded when Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon stepped into the film room at the team’s practice facility and faced rows of seats filled with awaiting media members.
McCrimmon sat down at the table and leaned into a microphone to explain the three trades he had pulled off — each of which increasingly sent the hockey world into a frenzy.
First, he traded for Washington’s Anthony Mantha on Tuesday evening. A little more than 24 hours later, Vegas made a splash in trading for Calgary Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin. Then, on Friday, in the final minutes before the deadline, McCrimmon and the Golden Knights pulled off their biggest move, trading for San Jose Sharks forward Tomas Hertl and the remaining six years of his eight-year, $65.1 million contract.
It seems, lately, that every move the Golden Knights make evokes strong opinions from hockey fans and pundits. Some of it is confusion about how Vegas continues to add big-name players while remaining under the cap. Some are even angry that the defending Stanley Cup champions once again stole the spotlight on deadline day, the way they have several times in their short existence.
McCrimmon is well aware of the polarizing reputation he and his organization have acquired.
“Contrary to popular belief, we don’t go after every good player,” he said. “We go after good players we like, good players we identify, and opportunities we identify.”
McCrimmon, Vegas president of hockey operations George McPhee and their pro scouting staff sure seem to like a lot of players.
Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Max Pacioretty, Ivan Barbashev, Alec Martinez and Chandler Stephenson were all traded for in the last six years. Now, add Hanifin and Hertl to the list.
A lot of front-office executives probably like those players, and with good reason. The difference is that McCrimmon and his staff find a way to get the players they want on their team at an incredible rate — one that is seemingly much higher than other GMs around the NHL.
Why?
“It’s hard to say,” McCrimmon replied. “You have conversations with people and it depends on your approach. We pay. I think that’s part of it. We have made some good deals for other teams as well.”
The Golden Knights haven’t been afraid to send high-end draft picks and prospects out in order to acquire players they believe in, players in the prime of their careers. Here’s what has come of every first-round selection they’ve made (or not made) since their inception.
Vegas 1st Round Picks
| 2017 | Cody Glass | Traded |
| 2017 | Nick Suzuki | Traded |
| 2017 | Erik Brannstrom | Traded |
| 2018 | Traded pick | |
| 2019 | Peyton Krebs | Traded |
| 2020 | Brendan Brisson | Still on team |
| 2021 | Zach Dean | Traded |
| 2022 | Traded pick | |
| 2023 | Traded pick | |
| 2024 | Still owned by Vegas | |
| 2025 | Traded pick | |
| 2026 | Traded pick |
A big part of it is identifying not only talented players, but those who will fit into the team. McCrimmon credits his pro scouting staff for that. Another key piece has been Vegas’ ability to identify the right situations to take advantage of, and pounce with aggressive offers.
“I think when you look at San Jose and where they are, this is a really good trade for them today,” said McCrimmon, who sent 2023 first-round pick David Edstrom and a first-round pick in 2025 to San Jose for Hertl and two third-round picks. “I think when Calgary’s got an expiring player (Hanifin) that was not going to re-sign in Calgary, I think this was a trade that made sense for them as well.”
When the Senators knew they needed to move Stone ahead of the 2019 trade deadline, before he hit unrestricted free agency, Vegas swooped in and nabbed its captain. When the Sabres couldn’t come to an agreement with Eichel about his preferred neck surgery in 2021, the Golden Knights offered a haul and landed their franchise No. 1 center.
“There are all kinds of dynamics into negotiating, and things that go into that, but at the core of it is preparation and hard work,” McCrimmon said. “That doesn’t change. That’s really important. We try to do our work as well as we can. I’m surrounded by a lot of really talented people that work extremely hard, and we are able to get a lot of things done.”
The Golden Knights have operated with fearlessness over the last several years. They’ve taken big swings, and had some major hits (like Stone and Eichel). When they do miss, they accept the sunk cost and move on quickly, rather than compounding the mistake by hanging on with hope.
Take their first-ever deadline move as an example. Vegas sent first-, second- and third-round picks to Detroit for Tomas Tatar, who was a healthy scratch in the playoffs that season for the Golden Knights. Rather than trying to force a clear mismatch to work, they immediately dealt Tatar the following summer for Pacioretty – whom they ended up trading away for nothing in return to open up cap space for future moves.
Vegas has traded away several talented players for little-to-no return due to this strategy. Pacioretty was averaging nearly a point per game for the last three seasons when Vegas dealt him to Carolina for “future considerations,” but that cleared the way for Vegas to sign several young restricted free agents who ended up being important pieces. Marc-Andre Fleury was the reigning Vezina Trophy champion when the Golden Knights traded him to Chicago for Mikael Hakkarainen, who never played an NHL game.
It seems no team is willing to move on from a player or move — no matter the sentimental value — quicker than the Golden Knights, and that has worked in their favor.
“Our players know that we want to win,” McCrimmon said. “They know we’ll do anything to win, which I think they appreciate and expect. They like being a part of a winning organization, but the trade deadline always gives a certain amount of angst to players.”
Vegas’ bold approach has brought in players such as Jack Eichel. (Stephen R. Sylvanie / USA Today)
When the Golden Knights hired McCrimmon as assistant GM in 2016 — before they had a team name — the expectation was that he’d help build the team largely through the draft. McCrimmon had owned, managed and coached the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL for years, with an extensive background in junior hockey. McPhee, then the GM, had built his previous team in Washington largely through the draft as well. The unexpected success in their inaugural season – which ended in a run to the Cup Final – changed their timeline for winning, and McCrimmon and McPhee adapted.
“I was all about scouting, drafting and developing,” McCrimmon said Friday. “When I came to Vegas for expansion, I was fascinated by building a team, drafting and how that would play out. I’ve said to you guys before, that you manage the team in front of you. These have been wise decisions that we’ve made with our draft choices, to convert them into players that have helped us win.”
The Golden Knights’ ability to land big trade targets – and prized free agents like Alex Pietrangelo in 2020 – is only one of the reasons they’ve become so polarizing. The other is their aggressive approach to the salary cap, which includes maximizing cap relief through long-term injured reserve.
Vegas has used it quite a bit over the last few seasons, most notably with Stone and his $9.5 million cap hit. He underwent two back surgeries in 2022 and 2023, returning for the playoffs — when the salary cap no longer applies — last season and leading his team to a championship. Stone once again landed on LTIR this season after lacerating his spleen on Feb. 20, and while the timing allowed Vegas to use that cap relief at the deadline, Stone’s injury is very real, and very serious.
“He will miss at least the regular season,” McCrimmon said Friday. “I don’t know how much more than that he’ll miss. It’s really an unknown for us. This is a different type of injury than what hockey players or athletes normally sustain. This is all about CT scans that determine the health of the spleen. It’s impossible to know what the timeline is. I’m sure every single person in this room has Googled ‘lacerated spleen,’ and it’s a bit of a tough one to pinpoint in terms of circling a date on the calendar.”
Fans can be as upset about the fact that the Golden Knights were able to add three key players at the deadline, but they’re operating well within the rules, and they aren’t the only team doing it. Nearly half of the teams in the NHL (15) are currently utilizing LTIR relief, and all but one are over the salary cap ceiling of $83.5 million.
There’s no doubt that Vegas has had fortunate timing on some of these injuries, as unfortunate as the injuries themselves are, but no rules are being broken. It’s simply the case of an aggressive team trying to find creative ways to gain competitive advantage in the salary cap era.
Creativity could be the Golden Knights’ strongest trait when it comes to roster management — not just in the approach to building a team through trades and free agency, but also in the trades themselves. In 2018, they were the first team to use the concept of a three-team trade, with the middle team working as a broker to retain cap hits. In a deal that sent Derick Brassard from Ottawa to Pittsburgh, Vegas retained 50 percent of Brassard’s cap hit in exchange for Ryan Reaves and a fourth-round draft pick.
From 2013 (when the NHL introduced the idea of salary-cap retention) until 2018, no trades of that nature had occurred. Since the Brassard deal, 14 different trades have gone down in the NHL with a third team siphoning cap space. The idea has almost become the standard practice for contenders short on cap space around the trade deadline.
There were four such trades this week, including the Golden Knights’ deal to acquire Hanifin. Not only did Calgary retain 50 percent of Hanfin’s cap hit, but Vegas also paid Philadelphia a fifth-round pick to retain another 25 percent of it, reducing the top-pair defenseman’s cap hit to a mere $1.24 million.
All three of Vegas’ trades this week involved salary retention, including San Jose retaining 17 percent of Hertl’s cap hit through the 2029-30 season. Each time, it cost Vegas extra draft capital, but it was the only way for the Golden Knights to add three significant pieces, so they took the gamble.
“What we were really working to do is to complete these trades so that everybody could fit into our lineup and play,” McCrimmon said. “That’s why we pay a fifth-round pick to Philadelphia. That’s why you do it.”
The team has walked its own path from inception, from holding opposing general managers’ feet to the fire during the expansion draft and coming away with a haul of draft picks, to finding ways to fit as much talent under the salary cap as possible.
Whether you’re a fan of the strategy or not, the aggressive, creative approach is worthy of respect. Will it eventually catch up to them? There’s plenty of reason to believe it will, but we’ve also never seen a team operate in this exact fashion in the cap era. Perhaps they’ll find another creative way around that when the time comes.
For now, McCrimmon and the Golden Knights have built a heck of a hockey team, now recently restocked with talent as they make a run at defending their title. If more teams adopted this strategy, or something similar, it would almost certainly make the NHL more fun from a neutral viewer’s perspective, and for some talented teams that haven’t found a way to get over the hump but are afraid of mortgaging the future, it might even win them a Stanley Cup.
(Top photo of Mark Stone: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Jesse Granger is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Las Vegas. He has covered the Golden Knights since its inception and was previously an award-winning reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Follow Jesse on Twitter @JesseGranger_
AngryMilkcrates
End of an Era
- Jun 4, 2016
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Zillah
Bleed Black and Gold
Anybody watching the end of this Sabres Oilers game? Absolutely ridiculous. Buffalo scored with two seconds left in overtime. Everybody went to the bench and then they called it offside by an eighth of an inch.
Watching Panthers-Flames during the breaks in the Bs game.
That Barkov-Tarasenko-Reinhart line looks REALLY good. Shit.
That Barkov-Tarasenko-Reinhart line looks REALLY good. Shit.
FrankerC
Registered User
Tarasenko with 3pts in the 1st. Looks like the old Tarasenko out there.
Tarasenko has 2 goals, and Barkov has 2 also. That line is dominating a bad Calgary team.
Correction. They gave 1 of Barkovs goals to Bennett
Olden McGroin
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- Aug 1, 2009
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I heard both teams had left the ice and were in the dressing rooms when the goal was called back
22Brad Park
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smithformeragent
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smithformeragent
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- Jan 29, 2003
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I know it’s highly unlikely….but Vegas missing the playoffs would be absolutely the most enjoyable thing this season, aside from a Bruins cup win.
So Leafs vs Habs tonight.....hate them both but it would be delicious if the Habs beat the Laffs.
22Brad Park
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22Brad Park
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I hope they stay in it. I like Bruce and they own Oilers lol Habs score in 1st min lol
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