Golden Knights acquire familiar face from Rangers

The Golden Knights are buying winger Reilly Smith from the Rangers in trade for the Sharks’ 2025 third-round decide and ahead prospect Brendan Brisson, Larry Brooks of the New York Post experiences. Vegas doesn’t have the house to accommodate Smith’s already-reduced $3.75M cap hit, so New York is retaining 50% of his wage, in line with Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. The Golden Knights have an open roster spot and received’t have to make a corresponding transaction.

It’s a reunion for Smith and Vegas, the place he was a top-six fixture from the Knights’ inception by way of their run to the 2023 Stanley Cup championship. Cap constraints following the championship run influenced Vegas to deal Smith, who turns 34 subsequent month, to the Penguins for a third-round decide. His tenure in Pittsburgh was underwhelming, restricted to 13-27–40 in 76 video games — halving his objective manufacturing from his closing season with the Knights regardless of seeing constant second-line deployment with the Pens alongside Evgeni Malkin.

A number of experiences indicated Smith wasn’t happy with the transfer, which he couldn’t block with solely a 12-team no-trade checklist. Along with coming off a championship and taking part in a formative function in Vegas’ growth as a franchise, he’d signed a three-year, $15M extension with Vegas the prior offseason. The Penguins, content material to search out another person to switch Smith’s minutes, flipped him to the Rangers final summer season for a second- and fifth-round decide whereas retaining 25% of his wage.

Smith’s manufacturing didn’t rebound in any respect within the Large Apple. He’s scoring targets on the precise fee per sport, and his point-per-game tempo has dropped from 0.53 with the Pens to 0.50 with the Blueshirts. The veteran has 10-19–29 by way of 58 video games and is on tempo to register his fewest photographs on objective in a season since his rookie yr with the Stars in 2012-13.

Throughout his first six-year tenure in Vegas, Smith averaged 26 targets and 59 factors per 82 video games. It’s unlikely he captures fairly that a lot manufacturing on a per-game foundation down the stretch given his current decline, however he provides a well-known title to a little bit of a hodgepodge group of wingers in Nevada. The staff turned to the cut price bin on the free agent market final summer season after shedding Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Marchessault, heart Chandler Stephenson, and serviceable depth scorer Michael Amadio to free company, choosing up names like Victor Olofsson and Tanner Pearson on a budget. In addition they inked veteran Brandon Saad mid-season after he mutually terminated his contract with the Blues.

They’ve gotten stable showings out of Olofsson and Pearson. They’re having fun with a 24-goal breakout marketing campaign from Pavel Dorofeyev, however depth on the wings remained the Golden Knights’ most monumental gap on paper heading into the commerce deadline. They’ll handle it right here as a substitute of a extra important, complicated acquisition like star Mikko Rantanen, who they had been linked to Thursday morning. That aligns with what normal supervisor Kelly McCrimmon predicted for his membership earlier this week.

Dealing Smith continues the Rangers’ unloading of pending UFAs for futures forward of the deadline, however that may mark the extent of their promoting as they continue to be within the Japanese Convention wild-card race. In addition they shipped out defenseman Ryan Lindgren and winger Jimmy Vesey to the Avalanche over the weekend.

Essentially the most intriguing a part of their return lies in Brisson, whom Vegas chosen twenty ninth total within the 2020 draft. The 23-year-old winger was anticipated to compete for a roster spot out of camp this season amid the Knights’ aforementioned turnover. Whereas he landed the gig, he had no factors in 9 video games earlier than being despatched to AHL Henderson. His minor-league efficiency this season has been nothing in need of disastrous, restricted to 5-14–19 in 45 video games with a team-worst -24 ranking. His commerce worth was slashed in consequence.

New York hopes Brisson can rebound to his 2023-24 kind with their affiliate in Hartford. He regarded promising with 38 factors in 52 AHL video games final yr and even tallied a good 2-6–8 scoring line in 15 video games of NHL motion, the primary of his profession. With the transfer, the Golden Knights have now traded all of their first-round choices in franchise historical past outdoors of final yr’s pickup, Trevor Connelly.

Smith’s absence can even proceed an expanded youth motion in New York, which actually began when the Rangers started scratching Smith for trade protection a couple of days in the past. There’s extra assured ice time for names like Brett Berard and Brennan Othmann, and doubtlessly even Brisson relying on his first impression within the AHL, down the stretch.

As for Vegas, they now have simply roughly $500K in cap house, per PuckPedia. Except they decide William Karlsson’s or Shea Theodore’s accidents will maintain them out for the remainder of the common season, there’s no LTIR flexibility for them to dip into.