After an extraordinary run through the Western Conference, the Vegas Golden Knights were denied the ultimate prize by the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Final.
But there is little time to dwell. A critical off-season for Vegas awaits, and at the epicentre of it all may be the NHL’s most intriguing restricted free agent in Pavel Dorofeyev.
The Golden Knights love big-game hunting and typically that means (a) spending every dollar they can up to the salary cap ceiling, which for next year is $104 million; and (b) using draft picks and prospects to acquire top-end talent.
That’s what makes this approaching off-season so fascinating. For once, this organization actually drafted (79th overall in 2019) and developed a player – a wondrous goal scorer in Dorofeyev, who has 72 goals over the past two seasons, potting another 12 during this Stanley Cup run. He’s a restricted free agent in need of a new deal.
Vegas’ indicated cap space entering the summer is a bit of a red herring: $13-million seems like ample room, but remember they have several expiring forwards (Brandon Saad, Reilly Smith, Colton Sissons, and Cole Smith) to either extend or replace.
The franchise faces the same issue on the defensive side of the coin, where Rasmus Andersson, Jeremy Lauzon, and Ben Hutton are all without deals. The goaltending duo of Adin Hill and Carter Hart is set for at least one more year and command little in salary (a combined $8.2 million in cap hits), but Hill was dreadful in the regular season and Hart was a mess in the Stanley Cup. If Vegas wants to improve there, well, they’ll need to find more money to do it.
There will be several weeks of typical Vegas financial engineering ahead. Ultimately, the big question they need to answer first is if they’re willing to pay Dorofeyev what a scorer of his calibre may command; even a bridge deal may require a cap hit in excess of $7-million. It makes Dorofeyev an interesting trade piece for Vegas, as well as an interesting offer-sheet candidate for teams in need of scoring around the league.
Consider his scoring peers over the past two seasons. It’s an impressive group of mostly premier first-line players:
One thing teams around the league (as well as Dorofeyev and his agent for that matter) are going to have to evaluate how much his playing environment contributed to this scoring surge, and if it would be easy to replicate elsewhere.
Dorofeyev’s next deal is going to be priced on this surge in production, but that surge came with a rather impressive quality of teammate component – the 25-year-old winger’s most common linemates this year were Mitch Marner and Tomas Hertl, two extremely gifted playmakers who create dangerous scoring chances for shooters.
In one respect it’s the perfect assembly of a line; you want high-end playmakers working with guys who can reliably put the puck in the back of the net. Dorofeyev is not the same weapon if he’s spending inordinate amounts of time in the defensive zone, or responsible for opening shooting lanes for his counterparts. It’s just not his game.
In a vacuum, the Golden Knights would love to extend Dorofeyev and keep him tied to the hip of a player like Marner. But doing so would likely mean painful choices around the rest of the roster. The recently acquired Andersson hitting unrestricted free agency would be all but guaranteed, and that’s just the start of it.
It’s going to be a bitter week for Vegas, simultaneously dealing with this Stanley Cup loss and preparing for a pivotal summer. But I expect this team to be wheeling and dealing shortly, and it’s going to start with a massive decision on their Russian sniper.
Data via Evolving Hockey, NHL.com, Hockey Reference, The Stanley Cap
