Golden Knights agree to sign Pietrangelo to $61.6 mn deal
Wild re-sign goalie Kahkonen
LAS VEGAS, Oct 13, (AP): Alex Pietrangelo is Vegas bound after eventually striking gold in free agency.
Pietrangelo agreed to terms with the Vegas Golden Knights on a $61.6 million, seven-year deal, according to a person with direct knowledge of the contract. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal had not been announced by the team.
Pietrangelo will count $8.8 million against the salary cap through 2027. Adding the top free agent available gives Vegas another bigmoney talent, but the team will also need to shed salary to fit him under the $81.5 million salary cap.
The 30-year-old defenseman leaves the St Louis Blues after serving as captain of their 2019 Stanley Cup championship team. Pietrangelo is coming off scoring a career-high 16 goals despite the season being cut short at 70 games.
Pietrangelo has 109 goals and 341 assists for 450 points in 758 regular-season NHL games. He had a postseason-best 16 assists and averaged almost 26 minutes of ice time during the Blues’ Cup run.
“He has been a stalwart player for us, for this team for a number of years,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said Friday night. “A huge part of a championshipcaliber team. He’s going to go down so far as one of the best Blues ever.”
Pietrangelo certainly upgrades the Golden Knights’ blue line, though changes are coming to their roster. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, defensemen Nate Schmidt and Alec Martinez and winger Max Pacioretty are among the trade candidates to clear cap space after Vegas already sent center Paul Stastny to Winnipeg.
St Louis moved on from Pietrangelo, a homegrown prospect who was the No. 4 pick in the 2008 draft, before he did. The Blues signed former Boston Bruins defenseman Torey Krug to a $45.5 million, seven-year contract Friday, essentially ruling them out of keeping Pietrangelo after more than a year’s worth of negotiations couldn’t amount to an agreement.
The Chicago Blackhawks agreed to one-year contracts with Mattias Janmark and Lucas Wallmark, adding a pair of forwards to help make up for the loss of Brandon Saad.
Janmark’s contract carries a salary-cap hit of $2.25 million. Wallmark’s
cap number is $950,000.
Saad was traded to Colorado on Saturday, and the 27-year-old Janmark could step into his role on Chicago’s penalty-killing unit.
“I don’t think they promised me anything, but they said that they see me as a two-way forward and I can fill in in a lot of the slots,” Janmark said. “And that’s how I see myself, too, so now it’s up to me to just play as good as I can and earn as many minutes as I can.” The 25-year-old Wallmark played for Carolina and Florida last season. He had 11 goals and 12 assists in 60 games with the Hurricanes, and then had a goal and an assist in seven games with the Panthers. Wallmark, a fourth-round selection by Carolina in 2014, has 23 goals and 33 assists in 167 NHL games. Wallmark, who is from Umea, Sweden, also has a career face-off rate of 50.9%.
Janmark had six goals and 15 assists in 27 games for Dallas last season. He also had one goal and seven assists in 26 postseason appearances, helping the Stars reach the Stanley Cup Final.
The Swede was selected by Detroit in the third round of the 2013 draft. He was traded to Dallas in 2015 and made his NHL debut with the Stars that year.
Janmark had 15 goals and 14 assists in his first season in the league. He also had 19 goals and 15 assists with the Stars during the 2017-18 season.
The Minnesota Wild re-signed goalie Kaapo Kahkonen to a twoyear contract to avoid salary arbitration.
Kahkonen went 25-6-3 with a 2.07 goals-against average, a .927 save percentage and seven shutouts in 34 games for Iowa in the AHL this season, winning the league’s award for the most outstanding goaltender. Kahkonen, a fourth-round pick in the 2014 draft, went 3-1-1 in five starts for the Wild.
The 24-year-old gets a twoway deal for the 2020-21 season ($700,000 in the NHL and $250,000 in the AHL) and a one-way contract for 2021-22 at $750,000.