Vegas Golden Knights Sign Tomas Nosek and Brandon Pirri

The Vegas Golden Knights have retained two bottom-six forwards for the 2019-20 season.

It was expected to be a pretty quiet day for the Vegas Golden Knights. Instead, the team threw us a curveball. Yes, Vegas will not go big name fishing; however, they have resigned some of their own.

The Golden Knights made it official by re-signing Tomas Nosek to a one-year deal worth one million dollars. The team also announced they re-signed Brandon Pirri to a two-year contract that averages out to $775,000 against the cap. I’m glad these players are back in the organization.

Both contracts carry good to great value, and both players still have a ton left in the tank. Nosek was almost a slam dunk to be back in Vegas. But I thought for sure that the Golden Knights would walk away from Pirri after a pretty decent campaign with the big club.

Let’s start with Nosek. The Pardubice, Czechoslovakia native had a bit of an uptick in production in 2018-19 rather than his first season with the Golden Knights. Last season, Nosek net eight goals, nine assists, and 17 points in 68 games played.

The 26-year old doesn’t rely on his offense too much because the main strength of his game is penalty killing and grinding down opponents. With Pierre-Edouard Bellemare signing in Colorado, there is a hole on the fourth line center position, and it’s almost certain that Nosek might take it. Nosek was 62.1% from the faceoff dot as he won 82 draws in 132 tries.

It wouldn’t make a ton of sense for a prospect like Cody Glass to take the fourth line center job when Nosek is more than qualified. The only way I see Glass is getting into the lineup is if he beats out someone in the top nine forward group or if an injury occurs. Otherwise, I see Nosek centering the fourth line of the Golden Knights alongside Ryan Reaves and William Carrier.

Now shifting gears to Pirri, I’m shocked to see him back with the Golden Knights organization. After the year that he had with the Chicago Wolves and Golden Knights, I thought a pay raise elsewhere and a more significant opportunity would be the first priority. But his heart remained with Vegas and the Golden Knights got a great deal in adding more scoring depth to their roster.

The Toronto, Ontario native started the year with the Chicago Wolves and got off to a red-hot start by scoring 18 goals, 24 assists and 42 points in 29 games played. The Golden Knights starved for offense early in the year, couldn’t ignore him anymore and called him up for good. Pirri collected 12 goals, six assists and 18 points in 31 games played. Even though it’s a small sample size, that’s fantastic production on the Golden Knights third line.

As for next season, Pirri will have to fend off the likes of Glass, Valentin Zykov, newly acquired Nicolas Roy, Patrick Brown and potentially Nikita Gusev in training camp. Pirri has the inside track ahead of all of those players, although, the team fears his play in the defensive zone which definitely works against him.

All in all, these are great signings by George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon. With these two players back in the fold next season, we got a few more answers as to who will be at training camp. But the team still needs to dish out more contracts to a few different players. Who will McPhee target next?