THE MEN WITH THE GOLDEN TOUCH
Expansion Knights milked generous draft parameters to build legit Cup contender
If Vegas Golden Knights general manager George McPhee earned high praise last June for his deft moves at the NHL expansion draft, it was mostly related to his haul of picks and prospects.
Most believed the Golden Knights would be better than your average first-year team thanks to generous rules that limited teams to protecting one goalie, three defencemen and seven forwards, or one goalie and eight skaters of any position. The thinking was that they would still be sellers come the trade deadline, though. The likes of James Neal, Jonathan Marchessault and maybe even Marc-André Fleury would be gone by February, replaced by high-end prospects and first-round picks. Funny that. Here they are heading home in the Western Conference final, tied at a game apiece with the Winnipeg Jets with a roster built on the strength of some rather shrewd deals. Some of the 30 other general managers went to great lengths to protect players or dump salaries.
“I thought he did an amazing job then, and I do now,” said former GM Brian Lawton, now an NHL Network analyst. “I didn’t know why so many GMs were bending over backwards to protect certain players. “Teams were a lot more willing … to deal than I thought they would.”
For example, McPhee added essentially $14.85 million (all dollars U.S.) in dead salary cap space in David Clarkson (from Columbus), Jason Garrison (from Tampa) and Mikhail Grabovski (from the N.Y. Islanders). As incentive to take those contracts, McPhee convinced general managers Jarmo Kekalainen, Steve Yzerman and Garth Snow to send him:
á William Karlsson (from Columbus), a 43-goal man á Forward prospect Nikita Gusev (from Tampa), who’ll join them next year á Defence prospect Jake Bischoff (Isles) á Two first-round picks in 2017 (Columbus, Isles) á A second-round pick in 2018 (Tampa) and two in 2019 (Columbus, Isles) á A fourth-round pick in 2019 (Tampa) Those deals mostly look to the future. Here’s a closer look at how their current roster came together: