Knights could pick local boy Zucker
Wild forward may be on the board in expansion draft
Could the Golden Knights have a chance at a Las Vegas-raised player when they draft their expansion team next week?
If forward Jason Zucker is left unprotected by the Minnesota Wild, and the Golden Knights are game for instant cachet with fans, they would land a hometown player faster than any other NHL Sun Belt team.
Zucker was born in California in 1992 to Natalie, a competitive U.S. figure skater, but the family moved to Vegas when he was two months old. He spent 10 years there before moving around the U.S. to wherever the best hockey development opportunity would be.
A full- time left winger the past three years, Zucker wouldn’t want to leave the Wild on the cusp of Cup contention, but the timing of this expansion is tough on general manager Chuck Fletcher. The Wild have a number of tough decisions on the blue-line and up front, and keeping Zucker would be one.
Fletcher also has five defencemen he’d like to hang on to, but most likely can’t in Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon, Matt Dumba, Jonas Brodin and Marco Scandella. The Minnesota Star-Tribune says Fletcher has received “quality offers” for Dumba and Brodin as opposed to losing one of them for nothing to the Knights.
“Sometimes at 3 a.m., I wake up and remind myself, ‘ You can only lose one player, go back to sleep,’” Fletcher told reporters earlier this week.
The Wild have been linked to a trade for Montreal forward Alex Galchenyuk as well.
HARD DAYS KNIGHT
Deadlines to keep in mind were Friday evening’s last call for players to waive no-movement clauses, followed by Saturday’s 3 p.m. roster freeze for all teams other than Vegas. The Knights can make trades and begin talking to UFAs and RFAs up until Sunday morning.
At 5 p.m. Saturday, teams must submit their protected lists to the league, either seven forwards, three defencemen and one goalie or eight combined skaters and one goalie, which will be made public at 10 a.m. the next morning.
Vegas GM George McPhee has until 10 a.m. Wednesday to make his selections, with all 30 teams to lose one player.
CAP CONFERENCE
The NHL Players’ Association executive was still meeting late Friday to discuss how much of the escalator they’d inject into the 2017-18 salary cap.
The league wasn’t prepared to increase last season’s US $73million cap, however, the players did favour a move to at least 2.5 per cent of the maximum five per cent escalator, with an eye on having to pay more escrow beyond that.
DON’T SWEAT IT
The Golden Knights lost a lot of money on potential sweater sales as theirs were not approved for launch a year ago when the franchise was awarded. The league wanted the Knights to wait and be unveiled along with the other 30 teams next Tuesday as part of the new design with the Adidas company.
“The league controlled the timetable,” majority owner Bill Foley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “But I have no doubt it’s going to be a huge hit with our fans. People already love the logo and when they see it on the jersey, they’re going to say, ‘ Wow’ and want to buy one.”