Three areas of need Vegas Golden Knights must address at Trade Deadline
We’re rapidly approaching the NHL Trade Deadline and the Vegas Golden Knights will be buyers as they try to correct some roster flaws.
We’re 59 games into the 2019-20 regular season and the Vegas Golden Knights have yet to really unlock their potential.
They lurch from one end of the spectrum to the other and a plethora of bugaboos has them scrapping for a postseason berth in a bad Pacific Division.
This roster is also flawed and there is a lot of work to be done if the Golden Knights are to enjoy a deep postseason run.
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It is just as well then that the Trade Deadline is in sight and it will give General Manager Kelly McCrimmon a chance to bolster this roster for both down the stretch and the playoffs.
Granted, McCrimmon will have to try and move some contracts off the books first with the Knights projected to have just under $3 million in cap space.
Given the amount of needs that this team possesses, the Golden Knights will have to be both calculated and clever at the Trade Deadline in order to acquire the pieces they need.
That means the likes of Ryan Reaves, Cody Eakin and Nick Holden could all be on the trading block, while someone in the ilk of Brandon Pirri could also be moved in order to free up some cap space.
Whichever way you slice it, though, the Vegas Golden Knights will have their work cut out for them when it comes to rectifying some of their biggest roster flaws, and we mapped out their three biggest areas of need.
1. Top Four Defenseman
Everything suggests that the Vegas Golden Knights’ biggest priority at the Trade Deadline is to acquire a top-four defenseman, preferably a puck-moving blueliner.
Of course, such pieces don’t come cheap and as a result the Knights may have to make do in other areas in order to ensure they address their biggest need.
Other than Shea Theodore, the Vegas blueline has been less than stellar all year and their inability to transition out of the zone without giving up turnovers is proving costly.
They have also allowed 15 goals in the last three games and rank 17th in Goals Against Per Game in the NHL (3.07).
As such, the need for a high-end top four defenseman is incredibly high for the Vegas Golden Knights and there are plenty of options available to them.
General Manager Kelly McCrimmon could go down the rental route and look for someone in the ilk of gritty blueliner Brenden Dillon, who was coached by Peter DeBoer with the San Jose Sharks.
Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Green and Sami Vatanen are other rentals that would be exploring for the Knights too.
Then there is the option of going for term and Alec Martinez, who is a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the LA Kings, would fit perfectly into the Vegas system as would Montreal Canadiens blueliner Jeff Petry.
It appears an almost certainty that the Golden Knights will acquire a defenseman at the Trade Deadline and, depending on who they trade for, that could be the difference between a long or a short summer.
2. Secondary Scoring
The Vegas Golden Knights have their explosive top six forward unit locked up for the foreseeable future, giving this team a wide window to win a Stanley Cup.
However, in a hard cap sport, you can’t pay everyone and the Knights have had to sacrifice some depth in order to sign the likes of Mark Stone, William Karlsson and Max Pacioretty to long-term deals.
That has really come back to bite Vegas on the butt this year, with the third-line in particular a black hole when it comes to offense.
When you consider that 263 of the 446 total points recorded by the Knights this year have been contributed by the top six, then that tells you all you need to know.
Cody Eakin is enduring a down year and could be moved at the Trade Deadline anyway given that he is a UFA in the summer, while Alex Tuch‘s regular season has been ravaged by injury.
Brandon Pirri and Valentin Zykov, who were both meant to provide secondary scoring at the start of the year, are in the minors and you need depth scoring in the postseason.
There are options for the Golden Knights to explore when it comes to acquiring a third-line wing or a depth scorer, and I’ve always liked Michael Grabner of the Arizona Coyotes.
He’s quick, he’s going to get at least one breakaway a game and he also plays a real gritty style of hockey.
However, given the Knights’ need for a defenseman coupled with their salary cap constraints, Grabner’s $3,350,000 cap hit could be a problem.
Could Joe Thornton be an outside bet? The veteran could play as the third-line center for the Knights and he’s still capable of producing given that he has recorded two goals and 22 assists for 24 points in 56 games.
He has a cap hit of $2,000,000 and would no doubt jump at the chance to play for a contender, while Joe Thornton in a Golden Knights jersey would be the ultimate slap in the face for the Sharks.
It is clear thought that Vegas need to spark their secondary scoring into life because teams win championships, and not the individual.
3. Add Depth
This will probably be the hardest flaw to rectify given that, as already mentioned, the Vegas Golden Knights don’t exactly boast a treasure chest of cash to splash.
They are projected to have just under $3 million to play with at the Trade Deadline, although they could create a bit more room under the cap if they can move the likes of Nick Holden, Ryan Reave or Cody Eakin.
But even then the Knights will be losing bodies and you need depth up and down the lineup in order to survive a gruelling playoff series.
And the Golden Knights have already shed enough depth as it is having lost the likes of Erik Haula, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Nikita Gusev in the off-season.
Colin Miller was also traded to the Buffalo Sabres and the defenseman’s absence has hurt the overall balance of the blueline.
You can’t overestimate the importance of valuable depth players, particularly in the postseason, and the Golden Knights could do with one or two fresh bodies that can come in and bring something different to the table.
Again, with limited cap space Vegas will have to get creative in order to spruce up this roster, but if they can find one or two bodies with manageable cap hits then that could help massively when it matters most.
Could the Montreal Canadiens be tempted to trade Ilya Kovalchuk if they continue to fall out of the postseason picture?
The forward has been a revelation since signing a two-way deal with the Canadiens, recording six goals and six assists for 12 points in 17 games, and his $700,000 cap hit could easily be absolved by the Knights.
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Players in that ilk, able to provide secondary offense and vital experience, would be crucial for the Vegas Golden Knights down the stretch.