Vegas Golden Knights: Predicting what might have happened on July 1
Today should have been a fun day for the Vegas Golden Knights and the rest of the NHL.
It is July 1 or Happy Bobby Bonilla Day for New York Mets and Baseball fans. But, for the Vegas Golden Knights, today should have been the start of Free Agency.
One of the flagship events of the NHL calendar, July 1 is normally a blockbuster day for news in the National Hockey League.
Just rewind back to last year when stars in the ilk of Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky were the glittering prizes of the free agent market, while big hitters such as Matt Duchene, Joe Pavelski and Mats Zuccarello were also available.
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It didn’t disappoint either with the Florida Panthers paying the big bucks for Bobrovsky, $70,000,000 over seven years to be precise, while the New York Rangers beat out the Panthers and the New York Islanders to land a franchise game-changer in Panarin.
While this year’s Free Agency class wasn’t quite as stacked, there were still some notable names potentially available, including stars such as Washington Capitals goalie Braden Holtby and St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.
And, while those players will still get the opportunity to earn a considerable pay day, it will have to wait due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the 2019-20 season set to resume at the end of July, Free Agency will have to wait its turn until a Stanley Cup Champion is crowned.
However, today felt empty without the usual madness of Free Agency so we decided to imagine what the day could have looked like for the Vegas Golden Knights.
To preface, these scenarios are based on the normal NHL schedule prior to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the sporting world to shut down, so we have assumed the 2020 NHL Entry Draft has already taken place.
We came up with a few potential scenarios…
Scenario 1 – Alex Pietrangelo
Long craving an absolute horse on the blueline, the Vegas Golden Knights had their sights set on St. Louis Blues Captain Alex Pietrangelo for a considerable amount of time.
With the elite defenseman hitting the open market, the front office decided to offload Paul Stastny‘s $6,500,000 cap hit at the 2020 NHL Entry Draft while also moving around a few other pieces, including allowing backup goalie Robin Lehner to test the open market.
In doing so, the Golden Knights created the cap space needed to go big-game hunting yet again.
So, armed with cap space, the Knights go all out on the opening day of Free Agency to try and establish themselves as a real powerhouse at the top table of the National Hockey League.
Although the competition is fierce, the Golden Knights boast a number of selling points including the fact that they are right in the middle of their win-now window and they boast one of the most talented rosters in the NHL.
With that in mind, Vegas is one of the main frontrunners for Pietrangelo and, after a day full of relentless speculation on social media, NHL Insider Bob McKenzie finally has the Tweet:
“The Vegas Golden Knights have signed defenseman Alex Pietrangelo to a six-year contract with an AAV of $7.5 million.”
There you go.
Automatically upgrading their blueline significantly and creating a potential lethal one-two punch with a tandem of Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore, the Golden Knights cemented their status as a force to be reckoned with in the NHL.
Pietrangelo ending up in Sin City was also the headline of the day, emerging as easily the biggest deal on the first day of Free Agency.
Scenario 2 – Robin Lehner
Looking at a flat Salary Cap for potentially the next two seasons, the Golden Knights opted not to go after a star on the first day of Free Agency.
Instead, the front office decided to focus on their current roster instead and switched their energy on trying to re-sign goalie Robin Lehner.
Acquired as a pure rental at the Trade Deadline – something the Golden Knights normally stay well away from – Lehner was meant to be the final piece in a Stanley Cup puzzle.
Going 3-0-0 in his first three starts for Vegas with a 1.67 Goals Against Average and a .940 Save Percentage prior to the NHL going on pause, Lehner showed exactly why he was a Vezina Trophy finalist in 2018-19.
A pending UFA for the fourth consecutive off-season, the 28-year-old went into Free Agency seeking both term and a lucrative payday after betting himself on countless occasions.
And, content with the makeup of their roster, the Golden Knights happily obliged by signing Lehner to a five-year contract with an AAV of $6 million.
It was a win-win deal for both parties with Lehner gaining the stability he so craved, while the Golden Knights locked down one of the best goalie tandems in the entire NHL.
Granted, committing to Lehner doesn’t leave a lot of cap space for the Vegas Golden Knights but, as the old saying goes, you can’t win championships without elite goaltending.
Scenario 3 – Bargain Shopping
Time for the third and final scenario.
Heading into July 1 with just under $6 million in cap space, the Golden Knights were limited in what they could do.
And, not wanting to disrupt the culture that had been cultivated inside the locker room, the front office took a minimalistic approach to free agency.
Rather than move pieces around in order to generate the cap space needed to go after a big hitter, the Golden Knights instead went bargain shopping.
With Goalie Robin Lehner opting to seek term and considerable dollars elsewhere, the Knights struck a team-friendly deal with Dallas Stars netminder Anton Khudobin to act as the backup to Marc-Andre Fleury.
Then, after a quiet day in Sin City, the Golden Knights opted to reunite two brothers after signing Michael Stone, the older brother of Mark, to a one-year $850,000 in order to add some depth to the blueline.
It was hardly a blockbuster start to Free Agency for the Golden Knights, who in this scenario decided to fill out the rest of the roster with solid role players on team-friendly contracts.
What scenario of the three we mapped out would you most have liked to have seen played out?
Let us know in the comments section below!