Perhaps spurred by the recent progress in getting the 2020-21 season up and running, the Vegas Golden Knights are back at it, working the phones in an effort to make a move to get salary cap compliant. Vegas is one of a number of teams currently over the salary cap upper limit and must shed some salary before play begins. However, the player that GM Kelly McCrimmon is allegedly pushing to other teams may come as a surprise. TSN’s Frank Seravalli reports that veteran forward Max Pacioretty has been the subject of trade talks this off-season, with those discussions picking up steam in recent days.
Pacioretty, 32, may be one of the older players on the Vegas roster but is still an elite scorer. The long-time Montreal Canadien was in fact the Knights’ leading scorer this past season, recording 66 points in 71 games for a career-high scoring clip. He added another eight points in the playoffs. In the two seasons since coming over from the Habs, Pacioretty has shown no signs of slowing down. His loss would be felt in a major way in Vegas, both on the ice and in the locker room.
However, Pacioretty’s $7MM, while commensurate to his production, is a massive weight on the Golden Knight’s salary cap. If the team were to move Pacioretty without retaining any salary, they would not only be under the cap ceiling but would have the flexibility to make an addition if they so desire. Seravalli mentions top available free agent Mike Hoffman or a reunion with Erik Haula as possibilities. One would also think that Pacioretty would still bring in a considerable return as well; he cost Vegas Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar, and a second-round pick just two years ago. However, in a definitive buyer’s market, McCrimmon would have to be careful not to give away Pacioretty for too little just for the sake of cap savings. The team was already lambasted for trading top defenseman Nate Schmidt for pennies on the dollar in order to facilitate the signing of Alex Pietrangelo.
One other concern for the Knights’ brass is the locker room culture. There have already been reports of many players being unhappy with the frequent trades that the team has made and the perceived lack of loyalty toward the roster. The team has dealt Schmidt, Haula, Colin Miller, Cody Eakin, Malcolm Subban, Brandon Pirri, and Paul Stastny all in the past 18 months, leaving the young franchise with very little roster consistency. There are certainly some in the room who have to be unhappy to even hear the whispers of a potential Pacioretty move. Others in the media have noted that he is not the only name on the block either, with fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury likely being floated again as well. Vegas must tread carefully when it comes to making any further moves and a Pacioretty trade in particular can only be made with a considerable return and a plan to replace him with the cap savings.
Who’s next Stone if they need to trade players to save money maybe wild Bill Foley should never became a owner…. Now we are seeing true colors from half assed organization…
Dude settle down lol. This is probably just due diligence…
Stone has a full ntc, Pacioretty only has a 10 team list. If anything Marchassault is the guy who should have a go-bag packed in case.
Calm down buddy, they are over cap. He is a $7mil hit… plus he is getting older. A good franchise keeps the cycle going, players in and players out. You’ll miss here and there but I’d say Vegas fans should be fairly happy so far with their young franchise.
It’s not about the money, it’s about cap compliance.
Signing Pietrangelo just to lose Pacioretty is a terrible management of assets. Teams aren’t going to be jumping over themselves to help the Knights out of cap hell. If they trade him, they shouldn’t be expecting much of a return. And his deal is actually really good. They’ll be lucky to get four good years out of Pietrangelo before his contract makes him a sunken cost.
Come back to montreal
Frivolous wheeling and dealing has consequences. We have already and will continue to see them for Vegas.
Vegas will never win a cup with this constant selling off of players who sign there long term. Have to build a foundation and stick with it
Don’t forget selling off their prospects, they are weak at centre, “let’s trade nick suzuki for a winger!” They need a puck moving defenseman “let’s deal erik brannstrom” granted Mark Stone has been great for them, the Suzuki deal is looking more and more like a Montreal win.
0% chance they’d get anything close to the return they paid for him to Montreal.
Was a bad contract when they signed it. Gonna start looking really bad as it ages, maybe worse then Neals
Pacioretty’s contract is good so far and there’s no reason to think he won’t provide value on it for the final years. It ends right when he should begin to start breaking down.
Could the Blues get Pacioretty if both Tarasenko and Steen end up on IR for the whole year? Wouldn’t that be something
Pacioretty being available might make Hoffman sign sooner than later. Only a few teams can take on 7mil and I hope Hoffman’s camp is thinking that too.
So everyone thinks that trading 7 million contract is ok to just bring in another 7 million player like Hoffman for maybe one or two years. I guarantee that when Max leaves and they replace him with a troubled player like Hoffman it will be a s**t show… It does show bad management skills… And a owner that thinks he needs to win…
“troubled player”
Besides the allegations from Erik Karlsson’s wife against Mike Hoffman’s GF, what trouble are you talking about? Mike Hoffman has been received well in Florida and played well. He’s not like Dany Heatley who killed a teammate. He’s not like Slava Voynov who abused his spouse. He’s not power-tripping like Mark Messier. It’s a bunch of HS-level drama.
Vegas runs their team the way I used to play NHL 10. Keep signing free agents for nothing and then trade the guys you already have for more assets.
But, even in the video game, the agents wise up to this scheme.
That’s why they should do what I do in NHL 20, trade them away, then bring them back with 50% salary retained! Why don’t more teams do what we do in video games? Clearly us and Vegas are much smarter than the other 29 GMs!
Actually, I’d be interested to see a study comparing the crowdsourced consensus compared with the real moves GM’s make.
Pretty much every fan on every message board knew the contracts of Bobrovsky and David Clarkson were insane the moment they were signed, for example.
Years ago, a Canuck blogger did a ten year look at Vancouver’s draft and showed that had they simply taken the highest ranked player by Central Scouting, they’d have been infinitely better off than what their paid professional scouts did. Don’t always assume expertise just because they get paid.
There’s always better options out there if ya look hard enough