Vegas trades its franchise face card Fleury to Chicago
VEZINA TROPHY WINNER FOUND OUT ABOUT DEAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA
What does the trade package now look like for Jack Eichel? Is it winger Alex Tuch, a first-round pick and 2021 first-round prospect Zachary Dean? Or would the Buffalo Sabres prefer centre Chandler Stephenson, and 2020 first-round prospect Brendan Bisson and 2019 first-round prospect Payton Krebs?
One thing that won’t be an issue anymore is figuring a way to get Eichel’s Us$10-million cap hit to fit. The Vegas Golden Knights managed that on their own on Tuesday by trading goaltender Marc-andre Fleury — and the final year of his $7-million salary — to Chicago in exchange for the minor-league equivalent of a bucket of hockey pucks.
The deal made instant contenders of the Blackhawks, who last weekend traded for Seth Jones and could have Jonathan Toews back in the lineup next season. But it was Vegas that benefited most.
The Golden Knights, who have pretty much everything but a No. 1 centre in their star-studded lineup, now have the cap space to trade for Eichel. Or go fishing in the free agency waters for someone like David Krejci, Phillip Danault or winger Gabriel Landeskog.
Either way, GM Kelly Mccrimmon does not intend on putting the money he saved by parting ways with Fleury in a long-term savings bond.
“It’s the nature of the job,” said Mccrimmon. “If you want to do your job well, you have to make hard decisions. It’s easy to sit on your hands and let time pass by without doing what you can to help your hockey team.”
That’s been the Golden Knights’ mantra from the very start.
If Las Vegas is the city that never sleeps, then the Golden Knights are the team that never rests on their laurels. Since entering the league four years ago, they have reached the Stanley Cup final and lost twice in the conference final. And yet, they are always tinkering, always improving, always taking risks — however unpopular they might be.
As a fan, you have to love it — even if it means you’re better off using Velcro to attach a player’s nameplate to a jersey.
“These are hard jobs and you have to make tough decisions,” said Mccrimmon. “I just really feel it’s always about what’s best for the organization and that’s what I’m trying to do … each of the four years that we’ve played we feel we’ve dressed a better team than the year previous. When you have those types of expectations and that type of standard that you’re trying to reach, your margins are pretty tight.”
That doesn’t mean that losing Fleury won’t hurt. Not only was he this year’s Vezina Trophy winner, but he was also the face of the franchise, someone whose infectious smile and stellar play immediately sold the city on hockey. While Mccrimmon said that the future Hall of Famer was told that he might be moved and that Chicago was interested, he deserved better than to find out through social media.
“The rumours hit Twitter before I spoke to Marcandre,” said Mccrimmon. “We had not even completed the trade call. We had not begun the trade call with NHL Central Registry. We would never speak to a player before you got to the trade call in case things don’t unfold.”
Still, it was just business. And it could hardly be surprising.
While the Golden Knights became home of the Golden Misfits after turning so many reclamation projects into stars, they have since discarded coaches and players as though they were actual misfits. The rationale is that winning trumps all.
After losing in the final in the first year, the team let James Neal and David Perron walk, and traded for Max Pacioretty. A year later, they traded for Mark Stone and then fired head coach Gerard Gallant while the team was only three points out of first place. Last summer, they traded fan favourite Nate Schmidt and acquired Alex Pietrangelo in free agency.
With Robin Lehner under contract for $5 million annually, it didn’t make sense to have two No. 1 goalies. Especially not with Chandler Stephenson, who scored a career-best 14 goals and 35 points last season, pencilled in as the top-line centre.
“I like our centres,” said Mccrimmon, who recently acquired centre Nolan Patrick in a trade for Cody Glass. “Chandler Stephenson did the job extremely well this year … obviously William Karlsson is as good a two-way centre as there is. It seems the concern is probably from people outside the organization than people inside the organization. But fair question. When you look around the league, there’s some teams that are pretty stacked up at that position.”
A lack of centre depth was essentially why Vegas lost to Montreal in the conference final. That doesn’t happen if Eichel is playing on a line with Stone and Pacioretty.
Sure, the cost might be high. You have to figure a guy like Alex Tuch, who is developing into one of the better power forwards in the league, would have to go the other way. But for a team that has only seven players remaining who were acquired in that initial expansion draft, it’s all part of the business of trying to win a Stanley Cup.