Kelly McCrimmon isn't one to shy away from spending money. He's acquired players such as Tomas Hertl, Jack Eichel, and Mitch Marner in an attempt to win another Stanley Cup. All that sounds great, right?
Well, yeah. C.R.E.A.M.
Cash rules everything around me.
When you're trying to assemble a superteam that angers the entire NHL, that's the goal. McCrimmon knows he needs the best players in his lineup, whether it's the first line or the third. This isn't a team filled with mid-line guys from the Pacific Northwest, you know.
Of course, there's a side effect to that. That comes with having one of the roughest salary cap situations for 2025-26. According to Bleacher Report, Vegas has the second-worst cap situation going into next season.
"The Golden Knights have been synonymous with pushing the boundaries of the salary cap over the past few seasons. That they were able to take advantage of the salary cap disappearing in the postseason allowed them to make the best use of LTIR to add more talent. While the new NHL CBA will make that a thing of the past, Vegas is sitting near $104 million in salaries ahead of training camp according to the cap sites. That's a superstar player amount of money over the $95.5 million cap!"Joe Yerdon
Only the Florida Panthers finished higher than the Vegas Golden Knights. Of course, they're also the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.
How bad is it for the Vegas Golden Knights cap-wise in 2025-26?
First, having $20.375 million in cap space sounds like there's some room to work with. You could bring in some solid depth guys and add fourth-line players for your group. However, there's a catch.
Both Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev will be free agents after this season. Eichel will be of the unrestricted variety, while Dorofeyev will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Those two deals alone could eat most of the cap space and leave McCrimmon constricted.
That leaves the depth piece conundrum. Eichel and Dorofeyev aren't the only free agents roaming around after this season. There's also Brandon Saad, Reilly Smith, Jeremy Lauzon, Colton Sissons, and Ben Hutton. All these players are unrestricted free agents after 2025-26, leaving a massive depth gap in the lineup.
You must also account for Akira Schmid, who's a restricted free agent with arbitration rights like Dorofeyev. With Eichel's deal potentially reaching $13 million or higher, how can you manage that cap space without making a sacrifice or two?
Kelly McCrimmon has shown that he can make the pieces fit
McCrimmon must also contend with not having prospects to fill in the voids for the Golden Knights. Trevor Connelly's dealing with a leg injury and the defenseman group doesn't inspire much confidence in bringing any players up. Not having players you can bring in on cheaper deals makes the salary cap situation worse.
However, the general manager has made it work before. In fact, one can point to the maneuvering to get Marner to Vegas. That included trading Nicolas Hague to Nashville, where the Predators paid the defenseman $5.5 million AAV until 2030. Imagine if McCrimmon struck a deal here and struck out on an elite winger.
That's an alternate universe that Golden Knights fans don't want to see. It's like watching your hated rivals, the Edmonton Oilers, win the Stanley Cup. That's something no Golden Knights fan wants to see.