Vegas Golden Knights: Beware, beware the perils of 2016 free agency class

All eyes are on the upcoming Trade Deadline for the Vegas Golden Knights and the rest of the NHL, but teams will also be working towards free agency too.

We are just a few weeks away from the Trade Deadline on Feb. 24, and the Vegas Golden Knights should be busy as they look to try and bolster their roster for what they hope will be a deep postseason run.

But, for today only, we want to look beyond the end of this month and towards the free agency period in the off-season.

There is one simple reason for wanting to go in this direction.

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As it stands, the Golden Knights are set to have around $15 million in cap space next off-season and that isn’t taking into account the fact that the salary cap may rise for 2020-21.

Vegas Owner Bill Foley wants to win and he wants to win now, so I can’t see the Knights being any less aggressive in their pursuit of hockey’s greatest prize.

After all, they have already made a plethora of bold and ambitious moves in order to improve this roster, including going all out to sign veteran forward Paul Stastny in free agency as well as giving up significant pieces of their future in order to trade for both Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone.

And, with elite stars such as St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo and Washington Capitals goalie Braden Holtby set to hit the open market in the summer, it wouldn’t surprise anyone I don’t think if the Golden Knights did indeed go big bear hunting again in order to push them another step closer to the Stanley Cup.

However, with so much money already invested in a core group of players, the Vegas Golden Knights should proceed with caution before investing huge sums of cash in one or two players.

You only need to look back at the free agency class of 2016 to learn some harsh lessons when it comes to overpaying a player.

Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing but there is no doubt that 2016 will go down as the year many teams jeopardized their short-term future by paying through the nose for players who were significantly overvalued.

Take the New York Islanders for example, who paid gritty forward Andrew Ladd $38.5 million over seven years.

Or the Buffalo Sabres who shelled out for forward Kyle Okposo with a seven-year, $42 million contract.

There’s more too. The Boston Bruins are really starting to regret giving David Backes an unmovable five-year, $30 million contract while Milan Lucic‘s rapid decline has really made the Edmonton Oilers look stupid for paying the enforcer $42 million over seven years.

Let’s now look at how each of those players have performed since signing those big ticket deals in the summer of 2016:

• Andrew Ladd: 178 games, 71 points (38 goals, 33 assists) for the New York Islanders
• Kyle Okposo: 259 games, 130 points (53 goals, 77 assists) for the Buffalo Sabres
• David Backes: 217 games, 94 points (39 goals, 55 assists) for the Boston Bruins
• Milan Lucic: 295 games, 115 points (43 goals, 72 assists) for the Edmonton Oilers / Calgary Flames

So, using those four examples alone, the 2016 free agency class should serve as a warning to teams before they commit a boatload of cash to an established but aging star.

Of those four players, only Okposo and Lucic are still regulars in the NHL while both Backes and Ladd are now mired in obscurity in the AHL.

Not a single one of those contracts have aged well whatsoever and, as the Boston Bruins are finding out now, trying to move a contract such as the one Backes is on is almost impossible.

Therefore, the Golden Knights should proceed with extreme caution when pursuing high-profile free agents in the off-season.

For one, they have already sacrificed depth in order to stack up on big hitters, the majority of which are signed to long-term deals.

Just look at Paul Stastny, who signed a three-year, $19,500,000 contract back in 2018, a contract that is teetering on the brink of being a slight overpayment.

It is all well and good having a core of superstars on big contracts but you also need depth and swiss-army knife style of players to help fill out the roster.

Just look at the Washington Capitals during their run to the Stanley Cup in 2017-18. While they did boast a juggernaut core featuring the likes of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, John Carlson and Braden Holtby, they also relied upon a cast of role players who played just an important part in finally ending that franchise’s championship drought.

For the Golden Knights, they have the likes of Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson under contract through at least 2023-24, ensuring that their Stanley Cup window is a long one.

However, as we are seeing from Vegas this year, you can’t just rely on a collection of high-end players to get the job done, you need depth and lots of it in order to be successful in the NHL.

As a result, the Vegas Golden Knights should study the free agency class of 2016 carefully and learn from mistakes made that summer before splashing out huge sums of money on one or two established stars.

Just ask the likes of the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Islanders how that particular strategy is working out for them right now.