McPhee holds all expansion cards
George McPhee is spending a moment as “The Godfather” of the NHL during the Vegas Golden Knights’ expansion window.
He will decide the fate for a significant chunk of the league’s talent, fielding calls from fellow general managers willing to trade something to keep McPhee from plucking certain players from their rosters, or to take someone from another team to flip in a deal.
All trade roads run through Vegas. And every move has its price ahead of tomorrow night’s official announcement of the Vegas roster. Last night, the New York Islanders had a deal in place to send their firstround pick to Vegas to steer the Knights toward selecting a designated player off their unprotected list, likely winger Nikolay Kulemin, who has one year at a $4.187 million salary cap hit left on his contract.
“Whatever you want to give us has to be better than what we can claim from that club,” McPhee said in Las Vegas on Sunday. “Then we’re going to go to that club and say, ‘We have interest in this player, there’s another club that has interest in this player. How do we want to do this? How can we protect your roster? You can negotiate your way out of this if you wish.’”
He emphasized that each team will be contacted and given the opportunity to have a say in protecting its roster. But he said yesterday was the final day for GMs to make pitches and hold negotiations because Vegas was planning to pick its team today.
“It’s going to take us a while to pick the team (today) because one change in this matrix affects everything, with your cap now, with your cap going forward, with the cap that you have done for this expansion draft, with the cap that you need for the regular season,” McPhee said. “Is the player under contract? Not under contract? Does he fit the positional requirements? So that’s why you can’t get too cute and try to complicate it too much.”
Beyond building what could be the most competitive expansion team in NHL history, McPhee has the golden opportunity to play some desperate teams against each other and build a collection of draft picks and other assets. Vegas must pick one player from each of the existing 30 teams, but there’s only so much room on the roster next season even with some minor league prospects thrown in.
“The expansion draft, I think the way it’s set up now is quite interesting,” said Capitals assistant GM Ross Mahoney, who worked under McPhee for 17 years. “I’m really interested to see how much movement that there’s going to be.”
Coyotes done with Doan
The Arizona Coyotes will not offer forward Shane Doan a contract for the upcoming season, leaving the longtime captain to decide whether to retire or join another team.
The Coyotes issued a statement saying the time has come for the organization to move on and focus on its young group of players.
Doan has played his entire 21year career with the Coyotes, moving with the franchise from Winnipeg to the Valley of the Sun in 1996. Doan became an icon in the state for his professionalism and connection with the community. He has 402 goals and 972 points in 1,540 NHL games.
Preds ink Lyytinen
The Nashville Predators signed defenseman Joonas Lyytinen to a two-year, entrylevel contract. The 22-year-old Lyytinen just played his fourth season with KalPa in the Finnish League, where he tied for seventh among defensemen with eight goals. He helped the team to a silver medal with seven points in 18 postseason games.