What will happen if the Dadonov deal is voided - Vegas is in deep trouble

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C. Ritchie
March 23, 2022 (7:58)

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Tuesday night, Evgenii Dadanov was not in the Vegas Golden Knights lineup. It doesn't look like he'll be in the Anaheim Ducks lineup on Wednesday either. As of now, Evgenii Dadanov has not officially been traded to the Anaheim Ducks. Dadanov remains in Vegas while the NHL sorts out the situation. At the deadline he was traded to the Ducks, a team that was on his 10 team no trade list. Vegas thought the trade list was voided and didn't think to approach Dadanov before the trade.

Now, Dadanov is stuck in a no-win situation. Anaheim knows he does not want to go there and Vegas needs him off the books to clear cap space to activate players from their long term injury reserve. But there is one loophole that could possibly benefit both parties.

Trades can still happen even after the NHL trade deadline. According to the NHL bylaws, players can still be traded after the deadline but they are ineligible to play any games for the remainder of the season with their new team.

If the trade isn't approved then the Vegas Golden Knights will remain in a terrible salary cap situation. With Mark Stone, Alec Martinez, and Max Pacioretty still on injured reserve Vegas would not have enough cap space to activate any of these players.

According to CapFriendly, if the Dadanov trade goes through it will leave Vegas with $3.7 million in cap space. If the trade is cancelled by the NHL then Evgenii Dadanov's $5 million cap hit comes back. This will leave Vegas to still make roster moves in order to become cap compliant. If the trade is voided, another option would be to trade Dadanov to another team. Hopefully to one not on his no-trade list. But this would mean he would not be eligible to play the rest of the season. There is a good possibility he may not play anywhere the rest of this season.

Here is where things get really complicated though:

In regards to the Vegas situation:

If the trade isn't approved, Dadonov's cap remains on VGK. If their LTI players become healthy, they must activate them

If they shed cap through a trade, the traded player isn't eligible to play in any NHL games for the remainder of the season

Vegas was clearly making a move to get a healthy player back in their lineup by freeing up cap space. So now that healthy player MUST be activated, which means Vegas will be required to make a move, as healthy players are not allowed to remain on LTIR (Unless you're Kucherov).

The Vegas Golden Knights have really backed themselves into a corner, which has been a theme for them this season. If this trade doesn't go through and the Golden Knights miss the playoffs there could be a change in management.