Vegas Golden Knights Stars Look Cost Effective in New NHL Environment
· Yahoo Sports
The Vegas Golden Knights are usually pretty tight to the salary cap. Still, that doesn’t mean they spend their dollars inefficiently. Jack Eichel’s contract, for example, would cost the Knights another $4.2 million annually based on this summer’s exploding contracts.
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Kyle Stich, an analyst for AFP Analytics, provided the numbers to explore how the the rising cap situation has changed NHL contracts. The hosts of the “Locked On Vegas Golden Knights” podcast, Tony Cordasco and Chris Gawlik, debated whether the team would be able to keep both players had circumstances been different.
“Eichel might have cost himself $30 million,” Gawlik said.
Cordasco had wondered before Eichel’s recent extension how things might have been different if he followed the Auston Matthews model and only signed a four-year contract.
“I get it, the security and all that,” Cordasco said. “That’s a lot of scratch to leave on the table.”
Similarly, Mitch Marner’s deal, signed in the summer of 2025 as part of a sign-and-trade, looks different today. A year later, Marner could be making closer to $15.2 million instead of $12 million. It’s not likely the Knights would have been able to afford both players without significant roster surgery, a curious thought following their run to the Stanley Cup Finals this summer.
Jack Eichel’s Contract Shows Major Differences
Eichel’s new contract looks like a deal signed in a different era. The star centerman signed a contract extension with Vegas nearly nine months ahead of his last deal expiring. No one should feel bad for Eichel, since he’s still averaging $13.5 million per season for the life of an eight-year contract.
However, the ripple effects of the new Jack Eichel contract are fascinating to consider. Eichel is 29. As a result, at some point in this contract, his decline phase will likely begin. Still, if he continues to perform like a top-10 center in the NHL for even three years, it would provide the Knights with nearly $13 million in total savings to use elsewhere to bolster the roster.
The Knights, at present, are extremely tight to the salary cap thanks to Eichel and Marner’s deals. With defenseman Alex Pietrangelo on season-ending LTIR, the Knights are likely to enter the season with around $170,000 in salary cap space.
The Mitch Marner Hypothetical
The element involving Marner here is purely hypothetical. He entered unrestricted free agency a full season before the salary explosions started. Still, Marner was a critical component to the Vegas Golden Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup Finals. Combining the total savings, the Knights could really use that combined $7 million. In fact, they are using it.
This exercise should show the unstable element of the fast-rising salary cap’s impact on the NHL. The Vegas Golden Knights will be part of a league with a salary cap of $123 million by summer 2028. That’s close to a 55 percent increase in a decade, when the 2018-19 salary cap was $79.5 million.
The Vegas Golden Knights may not immediately benefit from Jack Eichel’s contract or Mitch Marner’s deal because of their current cap situation. Still, they should see the benefits as contracts come off the books. Mark Stone ($9.5 million AAV), William Karlsson ($5.9 million AAV) and Nic Dowd ($3 million AAV) all expire after this season.
Knights owner Bill Foley spends to win. The Knights likely will be well positioned to do so in the near future.
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