Jonathan Quick flipped to Vegas in trade

The wild week of veteran Jonathan Quick has had its twists and turns. After the Los Angeles Kings traded away their franchise cornerstone and legend to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who are the worst team in the National Hockey League. Less than 48 hours after being acquired by Columbus, Quick is flipped to Vegas in a trade.

The Golden Knights get Jonathan Quick with Columbus retaining 50 percent of his remaining salary in exchange for goaltender Michael Hutchinson and a 2025 7th round draft pick.

The trade for Quick is the third major deal the Golden Knights have made leading up to Friday’s trade deadline. Ivan Barbashev was traded from St. Louis to Vegas for Zach Dean and Teddy Blueger was traded from Pittsburgh to Vegas in exchange for Peter DeLiberatore and 2024 3rd round draft pick.

The Jonathan Quick File

From the outset of the trade, Quick made it clear he was not happy about being traded to the Blue Jackets. At the moment the trade was announced, speculation began to mount that he was going to be dealt to a contender before the Friday trade deadline. With the goaltender situation in a bit of a pickle for the Golden Knights, the dots began to connect.

The 37-year old Quick, who was in his final year of his deal with the Kings prior to being traded to Columbus, has an 11-13-4 record this season with a .876 save percentage and a 3.50 goals against average.

Over his 16 year NHL career, all with the Kings, Quick has won two Stanley Cups (2012, 2014), named to the All-Star team six times and is the 2012 winner of the Conn Smythe Award. Statistically, the Milford, Connecticut native has 370 career wins with 57 shutout, a ,911 save percentage and 2.46 goals against average.

Looking at the Golden Knights Goalie Depth Chart

With the acquisition of Quick, the Golden Knights goaltender depth chart with injury and contract status looks as followed:

• Logan Thompson (Week to week) | through ’24-’25
• Jonathan Quick |  UFA end season
• Laurent Brossoit (Day to Day) | UFA end season
• Adin Hill | UFA end season
• Robin Lehner (Out for season) | through ’24-’25

When Logan Thompson gets back, it is safe to assume that he will in all likelihood be the number one goalie with Quick as the primary back up. What they do with Brossoit and Hill will be the more interesting dilemma. Three of the five goalies are slated to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. Of the two that go beyond this season, Thompson has an average cap hit of $766K and Lehner has an average of $5 million per season.

Given the situation, Lehner’s future is certainly not guaranteed to work out, nor it is guaranteed we will see him in net again. Coming back from an injury after having a year off to recover usually does not work out very well historically.

This brings up the question of whether or not the Golden Knights will opt to resign either Brossoit or Hill at the end of the season to maintain some goalie depth. Both Hill and Brossoit, despite being injured, have been very reliable in net this season.

There is also the question of whether the Golden Knights will opt to sign a goalie on the free agent market. The UFA market for goalies is rather extensive and it has some very good names. Among those with expiring contracts outside of what Vegas has on the roster includes Ben Bishop, Seymon Varmalov, Frederik Andersen, Tristan Jarry, Cam Talbot, MacKenzie Blackwood, Anti Raanta, Alex Nedeljkovic, Jonathan Bernier and Ilya Samsonov.

Plenty of good and proven names out there for the picking of GM Kelly McCrimmon.

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