In an effort to make the necessary cap room for Alex Pietrangelo, defenseman Nate Schmidt has been traded by the Vegas Golden Knights to the Vancouver Canucks. A number of sources have confirmed the trade is for a third-round pick in 2022.
The best way to describe this trade?… Sometimes you gotta do what you don’t want to. The team has still some work to do, but there’s less of a rush now. After signing Pietrangelo ($8.8M) and trading Schmidt ($5.95M), the Golden Knights are around $973K over the salary cap w/ 21 Players on the roster. (12F/7D/2G).
As such, almost immediately after the trade was confirmed, the Golden Knights announced the signing of Pietrangelo.
This was a “necessary evil” of adding Pietrangelo considering the team was having no luck moving goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Vegas may still try to do so, but this deal helps the Golden Knights become cap compliant with the announcement of Pietrangelo signing a seven-year deal for $8.8 million per season. It also comes days after the Golden Knights traded Paul Stastny.
Schmidt is a strong all-around defender who does well in tough minutes while signed to a relatively fair deal for the next five seasons. He’ll do well for the Vancouver Canucks who had been relatively quiet up to his point in free agency. Other than signing Braden Holtby, this was their first big addition after losing Chris Tanev, Tyler Toffoli and Jacob Markstrom to other teams.
Schmidt is a top-four, two-way defenceman on any team in the NHL. His defensive numbers fell off this season but there’s a lot of people in Vegas who won’t love this move.
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