The Vegas Golden Knights dropped an absolute nuke on the NHL universe on Friday, trading Pavel Dorofeyev to the New York Rangers. In comes three draft picks, which turn into more from Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon.
So what's a general manager to do in this situation? Is he supposed to cower and give a half-arsed explanation for the trade? Well, that's not how it went down, as he explained why he balked at Dorofeyev's price range (which turned out to be $11 million AAV for seven years).
"For Pav, we’re tremendously proud of him... In the last 2 years, he really blossomed with more opportunity. He was a 37 goal scorer this past year, 12 more in the playoffs, 35 goals the year previous. We wish him the very best. 
I think he’s gonna do great with his new opportunity in New York… From a team standpoint, this is the business of hockey. And Pav was making, I think, $1.9 million with us last year. He’s now going to be making $11 million a season for seven more years, and it’s well earned, but it just puts us in a situation where it can’t be accommodated here. 
We love the player, and he was really, really important for us, but we needed to take the opportunity to work on getting cap compliant, and he was part of how we did that."Kelly McCrimmon
Yes, the business side of hockey can be extremely ugly, as McCrimmon admitted. It means watching your favorite players leave town for greener (allegedly) pastures, leaving only the memories behind. I can't tell you how many people on social media were heartbroken by the news about Dorofeyev.
But if there's one thing we've learned about the Golden Knights general manager, it's that he knows what he's doing. I mean, what are you going to do with $4.625 million in cap space (sans Alex Pietrangelo's season-ending LTIR designation)? Just look at when he relieved Bruce Cassidy of his duties and brought in John Tortorella to see his master work. In fact, another glaring example shows why the Dorofeyev news doesn't hit as hard as it should.
Why the Pavel Dorofeyev trade doesn't hit as hard for the Vegas Golden Knights, starting with Jonathan Marchessault
Let's take a trip down memory lane and look at the various times that McCrimmon moved on from a player, shall we? The obvious example here is Jonathan Marchessault, who signed a five-year deal with the Nashville Predators during the summer of 2024.
Fresh off a 42-goal season in 2023-24, fans were clamoring for a contract extension for the Original Misfit. Price range? Perfectly fine. But five years for a 34-year-old undersized winger at the time? Blasphemous!
Lo and behold, he only scored 33 goals in two seasons with Nashville. If you don't know math, that's less than the 42 goals he scored in 2023-24. Ironically, Dorofeyev filled his spot on the power play nicely, setting a single-season franchise record for most power play goals this past season (20).
Let's not forget that Marchessault was undersized at 5'9". Combine that with being well past 30 years old and that's a recipe for disaster. But he's not the only example of McCrimmon moving off a player at the right time.
You can also apply this to Reilly Smith before he came back in a lesser role. The same goes for Marc-Andre Fleury and his controversial exit. Ditto for Nicolas Hague. But one thing remains certain: Golden Knights fans don't have anything to worry about.
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