Already Spent all the Gold

Team: 2019-20 Vegas Golden Knights

Initial Creation Date: May 29, 2019

Published: May 29, 2019

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

How did they get here? In only two short years Vegas is already in cap trouble. Their surprise first season pushed them to ship out some of their youth for high priced UFA's and lock up some of their originally under appreciated players to long term higher cost contracts. The good news is that they are a solid team and can move out some players for picks/prospects and cap relief as there are no truly terrible contracts, but they will have to work hard to get their cap situation under control while they look to make long playoff runs in the next few seasons.

RFA's
Karlsson - Signs long term with the club that gave him a chance as a top 6 player for a small discount at 6 x 6.25M
Nosek - Extended for 2 x 1.25M
Subban - Extended for 2 x 1M
Hyka - Signs in KHL
Schuldt - Signs for 2 years at $1.125M
Gusev - There is unfortunately no room for him given the cap situation. Vegas sends him out east to Washington where he signs for 2 years at $4M (similar %cap to when Panarin came to the NHL).

UFA's
Engelland - Hometown guy brought back for one last run at $1.5M to mentor the younger defenders coming up (Whitecloud, Schultd).
Bellamare - Signs elsewhere. Vegas can't afford to bring him back and doesn't really need to.
Carpenter - Let go, Vegas chooses to offer Pirri a deal instead of him.
Pirri - signs a 2 x $1.25M deal on a contending team instead of chasing opportunity on a bottom feeder.
Carr - leaves for a team with less players ahead of him.

Trades
Priority for Vegas will be moving out players for cap relief and getting the best return that they can. Most of the guys they are looking at moving are good players on good contracts for what they bring so should return good value from other organizations despite them knowing Vegas is up against the cap. I have chosen to move out #3D (Miller) and #3C (Eakin) with the expectation that the rest of the D can pickup the slack and that Glass makes the team next year. Vegas has amassed a war chest of picks in 2019 and likely uses them to move up a few times at the draft to get the players their scouts want. Alternatively, they can move them for picks in future years to teams if there is no player available they really like when their time to choose comes up.

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