Defensemen are going at a premium in the NHL, so it was no surprise the Vegas Golden Knights targeted the position at the expansion draft. It was a smart way to load up on trade assets as the front office embraced a forward-thinking approach to building a winner from the ground up.
What do the Vegas Golden Knights plan to do with 12 defensemen?
Even after trading four of them, Vegas has more defensemen than it could possibly use. What’s next?
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But as a result of the Golden Knights’ aggressiveness in adding defensemen, they’re now left with more than they could possibly need. Even after trading Marc Methot, Alexei Emelin, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and David Schlemko for draft picks over the past few weeks, Vegas still needs to figure out how to clear more space at the position.
Following the recent signing of first-round pick Erik Brannstrom to an entry-level contract, the Golden Knights now have 11 defensemen on NHL contracts for next season. They also have restricted free agent Nate Schmidt, who will get a contract soon, bringing the total to 12. Most teams usually carry seven or eight defensemen on a 23-man active roster, so at least a few guys will need to be moved around in the coming months.
The obvious answer would be to demote some players to the AHL, but it won’t necessarily be that simple for Vegas. Only two players (Brannstrom, Shea Theodore) among those 12 are waiver-exempt, so the other 10 would need to clear waivers in order to be reassigned.
The Golden Knights probably wouldn’t mind risking Jason Garrison’s $4.6 million cap hit or Luca Sbisa’s $3.9 million cap hit to the other 30 teams, but the younger players on cheaper contracts make for much more difficult decisions. And if Theodore, a top prospect acquired from the Ducks in exchange for taking Clayton Stoner instead of Sami Vatanen or Josh Manson, ends up being too good not to make the team, then you’re only going to be clearing one spot by demoting a waiver-exempt player off the active roster.
That means others will either need to be traded or placed on waivers for AHL reassignment.
You’d think at least five of the defensemen are highly likely or guaranteed to make the Golden Knights’ roster right now: Schmidt, Sbisa, Brayden McNabb, Jon Merrill, and Colin Miller. (Only two of the 12 guys they’re dealing with are right-handed shooters, and players will be forced onto their offsides no matter what, so we’re not even getting into that here.)
After those five, you have the veterans — Garrison, Stoner, Deryk Engelland, Brad Hunt — and a trio of young wild cards in Theodore, Brannstrom, and Griffin Reinhart. Presumably if you’re Vegas, you’d like to see what you have in the younger pieces rather than trot out known mediocrity. It’s not a sure thing how the team will want to fill a full seven- or eight-man rotation, however.
One potential solution here is simply to take a couple of the veterans, push them through waivers, and bury them in the AHL. The Golden Knights drafted Sbisa straight up, so they must want to actually use him. But there’s little risk to placing the likes of Garrison, Stoner, Engelland, or Hunt on waivers. If another team takes one of them, no big deal.
So the Golden Knights could just reassign Brannstrom without waivers, run Garrison, Engelland, and Hunt through waivers, and clear four spots that way. Then you’re down to eight players, or seven if Theodore is sent to the AHL as well. Problem solved.
The questions are whether ownership will be cool with having a couple of expensive veterans buried in the AHL (probably), and whether management might actually prefer to have older guys like Garrison and Stoner on the roster (possibly). Maybe Vegas would prefer to trade a guy like Merrill for value and keep Garrison in the NHL rather than bury Garrison for nothing and keep Merrill, particularly given that it’s not a win-now team.
But one thing is for certain, and it’s that the Golden Knights won’t go into next season with 12 defensemen on the roster. That’s literally impossible, for one, because you need to carry at least 12 forwards and two goalies. Even if they wanted to go wild with defensemen, nine would be the max. It’s more reasonable to expect they carry seven or eight blue liners since they’ll want to have an extra forward or two on hand.
Vegas will have to figure this out by opening night, whether it’s through trades, risking players to waivers for AHL reassignment, or a combination of the two. Then we’ll have a better idea of what the defense actually looks like.
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