Vegas GM Believes His Team Will Not Make a Splash at the NHL Trade Deadline This Year
Vegas Golden Knights General Manager Kelly McCrimmon was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Gord Stellick and Mike Johnson and was about his trade deadline strategy. Did he think the Golden Knights would be as active as they were in years past?
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Gord Stellick: “So talking about again, the hockey team right now, and just getting things together. Trade deadline, you’ve always had the big fish last year, years, Mike Johnson, remember, Mike, you said that you sit around trade deadline hoping something’s going to happen, to go, oh my god, they got Tomas Hertl that like, that’s a real trade. All those kinds of things happening. So we appreciated that on deadline day. How would you characterize your thinking or strategy heading into trade deadline?”
Kelly McCrimmon: “I think it will be much quieter. I think some of the moves we made last year at the deadline when we acquired Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl, as you just mentioned, I think we’re made with this year’s team and future teams in mind. Hanifin was an expiring contract.
We were able to get an extension done with Noah, and Tomas had, had term when we acquired him. When we went through it last year at the trade deadline, we had a lot of expiring contracts on our team, pending free agents, and we wanted to strategically replace some of those players that we potentially would be losing, using last year’s trade deadline as the way to do it.
This year, there are two things. One, I think our needs are a little bit different. And secondly, we don’t have anywhere near the same resources to make trades that we did a year ago. So I would expect that we’d be quieter this time around. And the other thing about last year, we were the defending Stanley Cup champions and we were dealing with a lot of injuries. We were trying to build a team that had a chance to repeat. So that was part of the motivation for us being as aggressive as we were last year.”
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NHLRumors.com Note: You can never say never with the Vegas Golden Knights. McCrimmon says one thing: there is always a chance if the right deal comes their way, they will make that deal. It would be shocking if the Golden Knights stayed quiet, as their General Manager said on the radio. Yes, they may not have had the assets in years past, but the Golden Knights made tough business decisions. So, not making trades is not part of their DNA. While it may not be a big name, look for Vegas to add depth to their roster at the deadline.
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