Did the Vegas Golden Knights over play their hand trading for Jack Eichel?

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C. Ritchie
March 16, 2022 (7:47)

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When the Vegas Golden Knights made a trade in November to bring in Jack Eichel from the Buffalo Sabres, most experts pegged Vegas to win the Pacific Division and challenge the Colorado Avalanche for the western conference title. Once Eichel would be healed from his neck surgery, the Golden Knights would have a lethal first line of Max Pacioretty, Jack Eichel and Mark Stone. Unfortunately, none of the three all-star forwards have been healthy at the same time.

Jack Eichel returned from injury February 16th and has put up 9 points in 14 games. Max Pacioretty has only played in 29 games this season and has been on and off the injured list. Mark Stone has been injured since February 8th. Since that time, the Vegas Golden Knights have gone 4-10-1 and have been outscored 53-33. They now sit in the final Wildcard Playoff spot. Not many experts saw this coming at the beginning of the season.

The Vegas Golden Knights cap space currently sits at $1.2 million. Currently they have Mark Stone with a $9.5 Million cap hit and Alec Martinez, one of their top defensemen, with a $5.25 million cap hit, but both key players are on Long Term Injured Reserve. That means to activate one of these players, Vegas needs to either move someone else to LTIR or trade away a roster player for essentially nothing to make the cap space work.

The Golden Knights won't be able to bring in any support at the trade deadline and will have to keep one of their big three forwards on LTIR until the playoffs if they want to keep this roster intact for the season. If Mark Stone remains on LTIR for the remainder of the season, the powerful first line that they dreamed of will have never played an NHL game together until game 1 of the playoffs.

By keeping their star players on LTIR and continuing to perform poorly, Vegas is putting themselves at risk of missing the playoffs. The Dallas Stars are one point behind the Golden Knights with 4 games in hand. The Winnipeg Jets, who just beat Vegas 7-3 on Tuesday night, are 2 points behind with 1 game in hand. The team they are chasing for 3rd in the Pacific, the Edmonton Oilers, are 2 points ahead of Vegas with 2 games in hand.

If the playoffs started today, the Vegas Golden Knights would have a first round matchup against the league leading Colorado Avalanche. Right now, that looks like a quick win for the Avalanche.

So where do the Golden Knights go from here? Do they go all in and trade away high salary players along with draft picks and prospects to clear up cap space? Should they try to figure out a way to bring in some reinforcements on defense? What about a more proven goaltender? Or do they just call this season a failure and try to regroup in the summer? After all the money Vegas spent in the offseason and the assets they gave up to acquire Jack Eichel, I'd be surprised if they didn't try something drastic before the trade deadline.

And things don't get easier, because if they miss the playoffs...they don't have their own 1st round pick unless they finish in the bottom 10. So while Vegas gambled, it seems like they may have busted.