Golden Knights Trade for Flames’ D-Man Rasmus Andersson

The Vegas Golden Knights have acquired defenseman Rasmus Andersson from the Calgary Flames pending an official trade call. The news was first broken by Darren Dreger of TSN. The Flames are retaining 50% of Andersson’s salary in the deal.

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Elliotte Friedman is reporting that in return, Calgary gets Zach Whitecloud, a 2027 1st-round pick, a 2027 2nd, (which becomes a first if Vegas wins Cup this year), and Abram Weibe, (a defenceman at UND.)

Frank Seravalli reports that Andersson is being traded to the Golden Knights without a contract extension in place. Earlier reports indicated that Vegas wasn’t overly concerned about that detail, as the organization assumed the defenseman would be eager to sign. Friedman added, “The chances of him going to Boston ended without an extension; Vegas was always willing to take the chance they could eventually sign him.”

Vegas was long believed to be Andersson’s preferred destination, but as of yesterday, the Boston Bruins’ offer appeared to have pushed harder and made a potentially stronger offer. Pierre LeBrun reports, “Boston had permission to talk extension with Andersson but was not able to get an extension done. Vegas didn’t have that permission so no extension negotiated yet. But given that Vegas was top of list for Andersson last summer, I can’t imagine there should be any issue for Vegas to eventually get that done with Andersson.”

Elliotte Friedman reported during the most recent 32 Thoughts podcast that this trade was getting close. He explained:

“Calgary has indicated that they want this done straight up before the Olympic break, which is three weeks from today. Today being Thursday — the pod drops on Friday — but as we record this, it’s Thursday, and the Olympic break is three weeks away. There’s an Olympic trade deadline on February 4, and I believe the Flames want the deal done by then.”

He added, “I also believe that Rasmus Andersson would like the trade done by that point as well. So I think there’s a lot of effort being made.” Few should be surprised this took only a couple of days to get done once both sides were on board to make it happen.

Andersson has 30 points in 48 games for the Flames this season. He’s having a fantastic season and is a pending unrestricted free agent at season’s end.

More to come…

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