Same-Day Analysis: The Golden Knights and the shiny object syndrome
A team that seems to always need the next new shiny object got the shiniest one out there with Jack Eichel, but will it be a trade that puts Vegas over the top or sends them to salary cap hell?
The Las Vegas NHL team hasn’t even been in the league for five seasons, and yet look at how it’s gone from the cute and cuddly Golden Misfits to a full-blown adult with real adult problems and a one-way trip toward salary cap hell.
In that sense, the Golden Knights have been both a beneficiary and a victim of their own success. Former GM George McPhee manipulated the expansion draft so well that his moves continue to pay dividends, as they did today when the Golden Knights acquired Jack Eichel from the Buffalo Sabres in a blockbuster trade. That success, however, has also come at a price and it’s created an environment where Vegas has become the default team for every disgruntled/available star in the league and fostered an organizational philosophy based on the shiny object syndrome.
“We’re not interested in every big deal,” Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon said out of one side of his mouth after the Eichel deal came down Thursday morning. However, earlier in his media conference, he likened the Eichel deal to the Golden Knights’ decision to sign a 30-year Alex Pietrangelo to a seven-year, $61.6 million deal in the summer of 2020. “I don’t think we had a pressing need for a No. 1 defenseman,” McCrimmon said of signing Pietrangelo.
Conceivably, they didn’t need another No. 1 goalie when they went out and got Robin Lehner, either. In addition to Eichel, Lehner and Pietrangelo, they’ve made substantial trades for Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty and Alec Martinez. And the last time we checked, the Golden Knights haven’t won a thing. After overachieving and reaching the Stanley Cup final in their inaugural season, they’ve gone deep in the playoffs, but lost out two years in the semifinals to lesser teams.
And there has been a price for all of this, one the Golden Knights will continue to pay in the future because of their lack of young prospects. As far as roster players have been concerned, it has cost them the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Nate Schmidt, David Perron and Ryan Reaves. In terms of futures, the Golden Knights will have had eight first-round picks by the 2022 draft and will have dealt away six of them. One of them was for Tomas Tatar, who played just 28 regular-season and playoff games for them and was a healthy scratch for three games of the Stanley Cup final. With that pick, the Red Wings selected Joe Veleno, a talented young player who is giving early indications he’s going to be an impact player at the NHL level. Vegas’ penchant for trading away first-rounders also cost them Nick Suzuki, the player around whom the Montreal Canadiens are building.
There is no disputing the fact that the Golden Knights need a bona fide No. 1 center. History has shown us that teams simply cannot win the Stanley Cup without one. We’ll find out whether Jack Eichel is that guy. He probably will have that kind of impact. But then again, the Nashville Predators are devoting a combined $16 million in cap space to Ryan Johansen (who cost them Seth Jones) and Matt Duchene, neither of whom has come close to delivering as promised.
You look at this trade and all the other ones the Golden Knights have made and you come to the conclusion that this team had better win something soon. As for Eichel, he won’t even be able to make a contribution for three-to-five months after receiving the disk replacement surgery the Buffalo Sabres wouldn’t allow him to get. That almost certainly takes him out of the Olympics for USA. As McCrimmon pointed out, nobody really knows the timeline for Eichel because no player has ever returned from this surgery, but if it goes the distance, he’s looking at returning in early April, with the season ending April 29. With their cap crunch, it’s entirely conceivable the Golden Knights keep Eichel out until the playoffs. Will Eichel be able to make a contribution after coming off major surgery and playing just 21 games over the course of two seasons? Well, Nikita Kucherov won a Stanley Cup after missing an entire season and that was No. 1 bullshit.
As for the Sabres, you have to be impressed with two things about GM Kevyn Adams. First, he’s patient. Second, he’s not patient to the point where it paralyzes him. He’s decisive. He stood firm on what he wanted and got all the elements you need when you trade away your best player – an impactful roster player (Alex Tuch), a top-level prospect (Peyton Krebs) and a first-round pick. Along with Sam Reinhart, Adams has traded away his two premier players and, while the rebuild continues, the Sabres might just be onto something. I’m still not convinced that roster gets anywhere near the playoffs in the short term, but they’re one of the league’s feel-good stories in the early going. They play hard and they play for each other. And now without the Eichel situation hanging over them, they can move on.
The Golden Knights, meanwhile, have positioned themselves as an elite Stanley Cup contender. And that had better materialize into a bare minimum of one championship in the next couple of years or they’re going to have some explaining to do.
They’re crazy entertaining though