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The Golden Misfits are no longer …
James Neal was the attacker who invented this nickname for the Golden Knights of Vegas after the NHL Draft in 2017, and he is gone now. He signed with the Calgary Flames as an unrestricted free agent on Monday.
Forward David Perron is gone too. He returned to the St. Louis Blues, the team that exhibited him in the expansion project. Defender Luca Sbisa leaves, although he did not find a new home on Monday afternoon.
[RELATED: Neal signs a five-year contract with Flames | Fantasy: free agency roundup for 2018-19 ]
Striker Ryan Reaves remains, but general manager George McPhee brings new blood, center of signature Paul Stastny and defender Nick Holden .
"It's really difficult," said Neal. "Obviously, it's never easy to leave a team, but I think what our guys did this year, what we did for the city, what we built together, it was a special year. , although. The 2017-18 season was special.
The Golden Knights exceeded all expectations by breaking records for the first-year teams and the Stanley Cup finals, and did so with an alignment almost entirely to the Expansion Draft, and They did like The first major league sports team in Las Vegas following the mass shot on the Strip on October 1st.
It was tempting to keep everyone together. McPhee said that he has offered a contract to each of his UFAs.
"We are attached to these guys," said McPhee. "Some of the guys who played for us, there is a strong connection there."
Video: Stastny on an agreement with the Golden Knights
was because they made the most of their benefits as an expansion team. They had a clean slate with regard to their list and the salary cap. They have collected players for the short term and assets for the long term. They were smart, and then things snowballed bigger than they had ever imagined.
They must remain smart to take advantage of their success.
"You really have to remove the emotions, and it's difficult," says McPhee.
Here's the unemotional truth: McPhee claimed Nashville Predators' Blues Peal and Neal in the Expansion Draft knowing they were expiring, planning to return them to the deadline for the NHL on February 26th. so that he changed the plan and kept it.
It was worth it. Neal was fourth with 66 goals. Neal was fourth with 25 goals. Winning the Pacific Division, making the Stanley Cup final and exciting the city, won out on everything McPhee could have received by the deadline,
McPhee is prepared for his departure using this surplus of assets to acquire Tomas Tatar of the Detroit Red Wings at the deadline for the first, the second and the third. third round choice. Tatar was already signed until 2020-21. He struggled at the end of the game and playoffs, but has scored 20-29 goals each in the last four seasons. Although McPhee offered a contract to each of his FMUs, he did so on his terms. It had a lot of ceiling space, but wanted to be careful with the length. He was not going to give long-term contracts to players like Perron, 30, and Neal, 30.
"The term counts," said McPhee. "A few summers ago, we had a lot of older people who were getting contracts for five and six years [around the NHL] I think everyone realized that it was a mistake, we try to be a little more circumspect. "
Video: James Neal has always loved the city of Calgary
Perron signed a four-year contract worth 16 millions of dollars with the Blues. Neal has signed a $ 28.75 million five-year contract with the Flames. Good for them. They cashed. Just not in Vegas.
McPhee got Stastny for a three-year contract and Holden for two years. He said that he kept Reaves from the other contenders because he "just took the money out of a three year deal and pushed it in half." Good for McPhee. He kept his own slate in the future.
The Gold Knights will never be the same again, and that's OK. They would never be the same. The evolution is inevitable for each team, but especially for the one who always makes his first steps in the NHL.
McPhee has advantages with a lot of strengths and ceiling space, but he faces the same challenges as every other GM. Some might be more rigid, in a sense. William Karlsson who scored 43 goals after scoring more than nine goals in a previous season, must sign a contract with the center of autonomous players. It could be difficult.
The Golden Knights started their inaugural season with the feeling that everyone was relatively equal and had something to prove, one of the reasons they fought so well. But that can not last in terms of alignment or salary structure if the players prove something. These are pains, but pains of growth.
The Golden Misfits? Players choose Vegas now as free agents without restriction. They do not come as rubbish against their will. It's progress. Finally, the draft picks will make the team the first player in Vegas. The Golden Knights will have been the only team they knew, and they will be sought from the beginning. It will also be progress.
It's time for a new season and a new identity.
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