Vegas Golden Knights beef up bottom-six with Cousins trade
After stunning the NHL with a late blockbuster trade, the Vegas Golden Knights proceeded to make a deal that addressed another need.
In the wake of trading for elite goalie Robin Lehner from the Chicago Blackhawks, the Vegas Golden Knights set their sights on bolstering their bottom-six.
They achieved that goal by sending a fourth-round pick in 2021 to the Montreal Canadiens for forward Nick Cousins, as first reported by NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman.
Cousins comes with a cap hit of $1,000,000 and he is a pending RFA, which means that the Knights will have the right to try and re-sign the 26-year-old forward first in the off-season.
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Although this won’t get as much attention as the spectacular Lehner trade, this was still an important deal for the Golden Knights.
As we detailed in a piece we did earlier, which you can read here, Vegas needed to address their lack of secondary scoring.
It is a flaw that has plagued them all year and it wasn’t going to get any better with both Alex Tuch and Cody Glass currently out, while Cody Eakin was traded to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.
And, although one player doesn’t solve all their problems, Cousins could be a very useful addition to the bottom-six forward unit.
Able to play center or wing, Cousins will provide depth at the bottom of the lineup and he is the perfect type of player for Vegas.
Gritty, hard to play against, able to play a two-way, 200-foot game and blessed with silky hands, Cousins will be able to do a bit of everything for the Golden Knights.
Plus, the 68th overall pick in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft can slot in on the second power play unit for the Knights, giving them yet another weapon on the man advantage.
Through 58 games this year for the Canadiens, Cousins has nine goals and 13 assists for 22 points with a +1 rating, with four of those points coming on the power play, while he’s only a few points away from tying his career-high in points (27) from last year.
What is also impressive is the fact that Cousins ranks high in a number of metrics, despite being on a bad Montreal team.
He had a 54.52 Corsi, Shots For Percentage of 55.06, an Expected Goals For Percentage of 55.14 and a High-Danger CF% of 54.31.
Cousins is a real swiss-army knife type player and he has averaged 13:28 minutes of total average ice time this year, dishing out 77 hits, blocking 28 shots recording 23 Takeaways.
A third-line of Chandler Stephenson, Cousins and Alex Tuch could be the way to go once the latter is healthy again, and there is no doubt that Cousins will bring some jam to the lineup as well as an added offensive punch.
This was a shrewd trade for the Vegas Golden Knights who didn’t have to give up a lot for a player in Nick Cousins who should be a more than useful role player both down the stretch and in the postseason.
Next. Knights pull off stunner with Lehner trade. dark
We will have more on this deal and the other trades for the Vegas Golden Knights throughout the rest of the week.