Pacific Notes: Golden Knights, Canucks, Sharks

The Golden Knights’ 2025 postseason came to a swift end in the second round at the hands of the Oilers. They were without winger Brandon Saad for most of that series and also had Mark Stone and Brayden McNabb carry injury designations at times, the former missing the series-clinching Game 5.

General manager Kelly McCrimmon told reporters today that none of them will require offseason surgery and there are no injury concerns entering 2025-26 among players signed through next year, per SinBin.vegas. Saad would have been out for the longest period of time had Vegas avoided elimination, while McNabb’s upper-body injury was the most significant of the bunch. Stone and McNabb will be back next year – the latter signed an extension mid-season – but Saad may have played his last game as a Knight after signing a one-year, $1.5MM contract in Vegas in January.

As for McNabb, the 34-year-old will get some needed recovery time after arguably the best season of his 13-year career. The shutdown defender recorded 20 points and played in all 82 games for the third straight season, leading the team and finishing second in the league with a +42 rating. He led Vegas with 167 blocks and led Knights defensemen with 131 hits.

More from the Pacific Division:

• The Canucks have $16.72MM in cap space to burn this summer and no notable free agents to retain outside of forwards Brock Boeser and Pius Suter, both of whom are unrestricted. The former appears set on testing the market despite Vancouver’s desire to talk extension, meaning Vancouver will have a decent amount of flexibility to improve their stagnant offense this offseason. Speaking on Canucks Central today, president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford told Dan Ricci and Satiar Shah that “we’re going to be in the free agent market if we still have cap space at that time – but we may get our work done before then.” Reading between the tea leaves – expect some trade rumors from Vancouver this summer.
• The Sharks have called the SAP Center home since their third year of existence in 1993-94, and that won’t change anytime soon. They’re close to finalizing a 25-year lease extension with the City of San Jose that will keep them at the downtown arena through 2050, per Curtis Pashelka and Devan Patel of The Mercury News. Local government will be putting funds toward renovating the arena, the fifth-oldest in the league, as part of the contract.