Golden Knights ready to wheel and deal
While 30 NHL teams were talking trades ahead of this week’s deadline, the wheeling and dealing is about to begin for the 31st.
The expansion Vegas Golden Knights can begin making trades and signing free agents for next season immediately now that owner Bill Foley’s final payment to the league has cleared. That happened Wednesday afternoon.
The expansion draft is almost four months away, but the Golden Knights could get some clarity — and some assets — very soon now that they’re open for business.
“We’ve been talking with teams here for a few weeks now,” general manager George McPhee said last week. “Teams are looking for some certainty with their rosters and obviously trying to improve their rosters before the trading deadline and they want to talk to us to see if there’s a player that we could agree upon that for a couple months from now to claim, which would make their life easier.”
Most of the talk about the Vegas expansion draft has focused on teams giving up draft picks or prospects to the Golden Knights in exchange for a “hands-off” agreement. Maybe it’s worth it a mid- round pick to the Anaheim Ducks not to lose one of their young defence men or for the Columbus Blue Jackets to guarantee an extra player is safe because they’ll be forced to protect so many with no-movement clauses. But if McPhee agrees to take, say, Bobby Ryan from the Ottawa Senators, it keeps GM Pierre Dorion from being nervous about losing someone like defenceman Marc Methot.
“Ideally we’d like to see the whole universe of who’s protected and who’s exposed before we have to make decisions,” McPhee said. “But there are teams that want to talk now, so we’re listening.”
McPhee has been listening for a while, but can now act by agreeing to trades for draft picks or unsigned prospects since the NHL has received the final instalment of Foley’s US$500-million expansion fee. It will also allow McPhee to talk future deals in person next week at the general managers meeting.