The Golden Knights should consider selling high on these prospects at the trade deadline

Happy deadline day! The trade deadline's always carried quite a bit of intrigue for the Golden Knights, as seemingly every year, we end up in contention for some major splash or out-of-nowhere acquisition. While Vegas has already been busy in the last few days, shipping out prospects Christoffer Sedoff and Jesper Vikman to boost the bottom-six with Cole Smith and Nic Dowd, it still feels like there's a move or two to be made to vault this team back into true-contender status.

Surprisingly, for an organization seemingly dedicated to shipping out every prospect possible, the Golden Knights find themselves with a few high-performance prospects this year. As we all know, those prospects can go a long way in making that big move happen. With that in mind, let's take a look at some guys Vegas should sell high on, sacrificing a bit of the future for the sake of the here and now.

Ben Hemmerling

The 2022 sixth-round pick and roommate of both Braeden Bowman and Kai Uchacz has been white-hot lately. Though only unintentionally his rookie season, Hemmerling's made the most of a delayed development track, posting six goals and ten points in just nine games in February on either end of the AHL All-Star break. For his efforts, Hemmerling was named the AHL's Rookie of the Month, though Henderson went just 5-4 over that stretch.

He now sits at 32 points in 48 games, good for fourth on Henderson's roster and only trailing a few AHL veterans. While his potential is intriguing, he could be great trade bait for a bigger-picture move.

Lucas Van Vliet

Another late-round pick, another potential steal for Vegas. We've written about Lucas Van Vliet's prowess before, with him recently placing 76th in a ranking of the top 100 NHL prospects as of late February. The seventh-round pick has stayed hot for the St. Thomas Tommies this season, following up his earlier Rookie of the Week honors with a CCHA Rookie of the Month award in January. His 32 points in 33 games now sit sixth in the entire CCHA, up from 11th a few months back, with his 11 goals ranking 21st. With a second-place St. Thomas buzzing and Van Vliet leading the way, Vegas could easily sell him as a high-ceiling return for some sort of prized acquisition today.

Trevor Connelly

It had to come to this, right? What good would a post about trading prospects be without mention of the one surviving first-round pick still in Vegas' system? On a serious note, though, Connelly continues to develop well with Henderson. Though he's missed a chunk of the season due to injury, he now sits at 23 points in 25 games through his first full AHL season. That includes 13 points in his last 8, with a five-game point streak thrown in.

As a first-round pick, he has to know he's in serious danger of getting moved, but it certainly doesn't seem to have fazed him.

Regardless of what happens, it should be an interesting day around the league. Have fun, everybody!