r/goldenknights

I’ll start by saying the opening-day roster is not necessarily the Game 1 roster. Those are two different things.

That said, I think the Golden Knights have essentially telegraphed who will be on the roster when the league transitions from the offseason to the regular season.

To understand why, you have to understand how offseason LTIR works.

Pietrangelo has been placed on offseason LTIR. That means the Golden Knights need to get as close as possible to the $104 million salary cap ceiling before transitioning into the regular season. If they don’t, they permanently lose that cap space.
For example, if the roster (excluding Pietrangelo) only totaled $100 million, then $100 million effectively becomes their cap ceiling for the rest of the season. Obviously that’s something this front office has always avoided.

That’s where Olofsson’s contract becomes interesting.

His cap hit is $1,638,330. At first glance it’s just a weird number, but it starts to make sense when you pair it with another unusual cap hit:

Connelly: $974,167

There’s still some space left after that. Being a few hundred dollars short wouldn’t matter much, but this front office has shown before that they care about maximizing every dollar. They even signed Hague to a deliberately odd cap hit a few years ago to finish just $17 below the ceiling.

There’s another contract that fits almost perfectly:

Bowman: $912,500

Once you plug those contracts into the roster, everything lines up almost exactly with the cap.

Forwards

Barbashev ($5,000,000) — Eichel ($13,500,000) — Stone ($9,500,000)

Howden ($2,500,000) — Karlsson ($5,900,000) — Marner ($12,000,000)

Hertl ($6,750,000) — Laczynski ($900,000) — Olofsson ($1,638,330)

Bowman ($912,500) — Dowd ($3,000,000) — Gatcomb ($875,000)

13F: Connelly ($974,167)

Defense

McNabb ($3,650,000) — Theodore ($7,425,000)

Hanifin ($7,350,000) — Andersson ($8,500,000)

Lauzon ($4,000,000) — Wotherspoon ($500,000)

7D: Coghlan ($875,000)

Goaltenders

Hart ($2,000,000)

Hill ($6,250,000)

That roster comes out to just $3 below the $104 million cap ceiling, which is exactly what Vegas would want in order to maximize LTIR relief.

So while this may not end up being the lineup we see on opening night, I do think this is very likely the roster Vegas submits when the regular season begins.

Once the season officially starts, someone like Connelly can immediately be reassigned and replaced by anyone making less than his cap hit. The purpose of this roster isn’t necessarily to ice the best lineup—it’s to preserve the full $104 million cap ceiling for the rest of the season.

And with whom? At this point I'm honestly less concerned with bringing another player in than I am with teaching Eichel and Marner to shoot more. This year seems like it'll be death by a thousand passes and bringing in one shooter won't fix that. There isn't going to be a single player who can come in and fix that problem, other players need to get better too. I know the group seems to really want Larkin, and I want him too, but bringing him on won't fix our pass always, shoot last mentality. How do we get our shooters to start shooting again?

• Barbie - Eichel - Stone
• Howden - Karlsson - Marner (line was fire during the playoffs).

Hertl plays with interchangeable parts on L3.

I don't think Howden is going to continue his goal scoring into the regular season.

PP1 is Eichel-Stone-Hertl-Marner-Theodore

LOL ducks

Because of the World Cup I’ve been getting back into football again, and because of that I’ve been seeing the differences in European fandom and North American fandom for sports team/clubs.

One of the biggest things I admire about European fandom is how much they care about their anthems. They aren’t necessarily always songs made for the team, or even through the team itself but because of fans. Obviously their are some examples in North American sports, Final Countdown and the Pistons (Or the American Dragon if you are a dork like me), The Bruins with Kernkraft 400, Sweet Caroline with the Red Sox, Sirus with the Jordan Era Bulls, The Avs and All The Small Things from their 2022 win, and the Leafs having 50 Mission Cap by the Tragically Hip(if you aren’t Canadian go listen to the song to understand why).

In North America songs are generally related to players, like Walkups in Baseball or closer entrances like Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Hells Bells, Wild Thing, Edwin Diaz with Timmy Trumpets, Mason Miller with DMX. In hockey its goal songs, the Pens and Song 2, The Panthers using Sweetness for a while, the Flames and TNT being grafted onto all their best moments post Iggy, Chelsea Dagger,

Yet these are mostly outliers.

In European sports basically every team has a specific anthem, and some, like Chelsea and Arsenal have multiple. Chelsea have Liquidator, Chelsea Dagger, and Blue is the Colour, the Gunners have North London Forever and Never Leave Your Side, Leeds have Marching on Together, Newcastle has Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero, Man City have Blue Moon, Man United have Glory Glory Man United, West Ham have Forever Blowing Bubbles, The English National Team have Three Lions, and Liverpool has You’ll Never Walk Alone. And that’s just famous English ones, not including any other countries.

We may not have a lot of history, but we have enough success to have something that could’ve stuck with the team. Even our goal song, literally called Vegas Lights, doesn’t feel Iconic with an uppercase I. In fact the song that I associate most with the Knights is My Own Worst Enemy by Lit.

TLDR:

What song do you most associate with the Golden Knights?

Just curious to see everyone’s thoughts on offseason moves. Here are mine:

Winners:
Florida Panthers
Washington Capitals
Tampa Bay

Middle of road:
San Jose (probably paid too much but have added some good players)
Ottawa (still expecting them to make some big moves)
Carolina (haven’t made any eyebrow raising moves but are still a great team)

Losers:
Chicago Blackhawks
Edmonton Oilers (Babcock mainly)
Buffalo Sabres

Overall, I still see Vegas as having the best team in the Pacific. Vancouver, Anaheim, Utah, and Seattle haven’t really done much to improve imo.

"He was very good in our community here in Vegas, easy for you guys to spend time with. Wish him well, hope he does great and, as I said to him today, I'll be the first guy to come over to the dressing room and shake his hand when we play Detroit. He'll do well there, it will be a good opportunity, and as we've talked about along the way here, these are decisions that have to get made that aren't easy. I just wanted to recognize what Koley has done for us."

Dreger originally reported hours ago

Puckpedia just confirmed with AAV

Per Johnston

Grain of salt, source is TSN and not confirmed yet.