Golden Knights Teeter on Salary Cap Brink: Is Their Superteam a House of Cards?
Vegas Golden Knights fans might not like what Bleacher Reports will say about their cap situation. But it's a harsh reality they must deal with.
Kelly McCrimmon isn't one to shy away from spending money. He's acquired players such as Tomas Hertl, Jack Eichel, and Mitch Marner in an attempt to win another Stanley Cup. All that sounds great, right?
Well, yeah. C.R.E.A.M.
Cash rules everything around me.
When you're trying to assemble a superteam that angers the entire NHL, that's the goal. McCrimmon knows he needs the best players in his lineup, whether it's the first line or the third. This isn't a team filled with mid-line guys from the Pacific Northwest, you know.
Of course, there's a side effect to that. That comes with having one of the roughest salary cap situations for 2025-26. According to Bleacher Report, Vegas has the second-worst cap situation going into next season.
"The Golden Knights have been synonymous with pushing the boundaries of the salary cap over the past few seasons. That they were able to take advantage of the salary cap disappearing in the postseason allowed them to make the best use of LTIR to add more talent. While the new NHL CBA will make that a thing of the past, Vegas is sitting near $104 million in salaries ahead of training camp according to the cap sites. That's a superstar player amount of money over the $95.5 million cap!"Joe Yerdon
Only the Florida Panthers finished higher than the Vegas Golden Knights. Of course, they're also the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions.
How bad is it for the Vegas Golden Knights cap-wise in 2025-26?
First, having $20.375 million in cap space sounds like there's some room to work with. You could bring in some solid depth guys and add fourth-line players for your group. However, there's a catch.
Both Jack Eichel and Pavel Dorofeyev will be free agents after this season. Eichel will be of the unrestricted variety, while Dorofeyev will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Those two deals alone could eat most of the cap space and leave McCrimmon constricted.
That leaves the depth piece conundrum. Eichel and Dorofeyev aren't the only free agents roaming around after this season. There's also Brandon Saad, Reilly Smith, Jeremy Lauzon, Colton Sissons, and Ben Hutton. All these players are unrestricted free agents after 2025-26, leaving a massive depth gap in the lineup.
You must also account for Akira Schmid, who's a restricted free agent with arbitration rights like Dorofeyev. With Eichel's deal potentially reaching $13 million or higher, how can you manage that cap space without making a sacrifice or two?
Kelly McCrimmon has shown that he can make the pieces fit
McCrimmon must also contend with not having prospects to fill in the voids for the Golden Knights. Trevor Connelly's dealing with a leg injury and the defenseman group doesn't inspire much confidence in bringing any players up. Not having players you can bring in on cheaper deals makes the salary cap situation worse.
However, the general manager has made it work before. In fact, one can point to the maneuvering to get Marner to Vegas. That included trading Nicolas Hague to Nashville, where the Predators paid the defenseman $5.5 million AAV until 2030. Imagine if McCrimmon struck a deal here and struck out on an elite winger.
That's an alternate universe that Golden Knights fans don't want to see. It's like watching your hated rivals, the Edmonton Oilers, win the Stanley Cup. That's something no Golden Knights fan wants to see.
Avalanche’s Biggest Question: Do They Truly Have the Depth to Chase Another Stanley Cup?
It's the biggest question surrounding their chances of making a deep playoff push.
The Colorado Avalanche enter the 2025-26 campaign with some of the best players in the world, but that doesn’t always result in a championship formula.
Three years removed from their 2022 Stanley Cup triumph, and with their championship window narrowing, the Avalanche still possess one of the league’s most formidable cores. The pressing question, however, is whether they can cultivate the requisite depth and restore the cohesion necessary to translate talent into sustained success.
The full-time return of captain Gabriel Landeskog stands as a pivotal development for Colorado. His reemergence in the NHL is nothing short of extraordinary—arguably one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent sporting memory, and, within the context of hockey, perhaps the most significant since Mario Lemieux’s storied return in 2000 after nearly four years away from the game. Lemieux wasted little time in announcing his return, recording an assist a mere 33 seconds into the contest on a goal by longtime linemate Jaromír Jágr. The symmetry of the moment deepened in the second period, when Jágr reciprocated with a deft no-look pass to the left circle, allowing Lemieux to beat Toronto goaltender Curtis Joseph and ignite Mellon Arena into unrestrained ecstasy.
Landeskog found the back of the net in just his second game after a 1,041-day absence, capitalizing on a perfectly-timed feed from Brock Nelson that left him unmarked in the slot. With characteristic authority, he unleashed a thunderous slapshot past Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger, extending Colorado’s lead to 3–0 en route to 4–0 shutout victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round at Ball Arena.
Yet, as with Lemieux’s celebrated return, the comeback did not culminate into a championship. The 2000–01 Penguins fell in five games to the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Finals, and, in parallel, the Avalanche saw their own aspirations extinguished last season in a grueling seven-game defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars.
Some people handle defeat better than others. Nathan MacKinnon is a man that wears his emotions on his sleeve. Despite the fact Dallas was missing a good chunk of their core, the Avalanche couldn’t beat them, and that was hard for MacKinnon to digest, much like when Colorado was eliminated in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2021 by the Vegas Golden Knights.
Assessing the candid reflections of a professional athlete immediately following a crushing defeat is invariably challenging. From an external vantage point, such commentary can sometimes appear unduly harsh or even unfair—after all, few of us are summoned to account for our performance with a microphone pressed to our face after a difficult day at work. MacKinnon’s frustration, therefore, is both understandable and justified.
Yet history offers perspective. Consider the Avalanche in 2022: despite enduring the absence of key contributors at various points during their playoff run—including Darcy Kuemper, Nazem Kadri, and Samuel Girard—the team ultimately captured the Stanley Cup, a testament to the depth and resilience woven throughout the roster. Conversely, the Dallas Stars’ victory over Colorado last season similarly reflected the advantages conferred by organizational depth; though they ultimately fell in the Conference Finals to the Edmonton Oilers, their consistent roster strength allowed them to prevail in critical matchups.
So that brings our next question. Do the Avalanche have the depth this year to compete at a high level? The answer is yes.
Brent Burns
The addition of Brent Burns in the offseason is a win-win for the Avalanche. He brings size, leadership, and energy to the blue line. It’s hard to be around Burns and not smile when you see him. At optional skates, he’s not just chopping it up with his teammates, he also gets the fans involved as well. At the skate on Wednesday, he was exchanging smiles and laughter with none other than Martin Nečas, who was his teammate on the Carolina Hurricanes for parts of the last three seasons. So it’s very clear that Burns is the type of guy who takes his craft very seriously, but he knows how to joke around and keep people smiling when they need to be lifted up. That is a spark that Colorado desperately needs.
Jack Drury/Brock Nelson
Drury may not yet be a household name, but his work ethic is unparalleled. He arrives early to nearly every practice and is often among the select few who remain afterward, diligently honing his craft. This combination of commitment and steadily improving skill positions him well to assume the responsibilities of the third-line center, and there is every reason to anticipate that he will make a significant impact.
In a complementary development, the Avalanche, for the first time in several seasons, can approach the second-line center position with confidence. Brock Nelson, a consistent presence during optional skates, secured an offseason extension and has demonstrated strong form on the ice.
Best Prospects from Rookie Showcase
Hockey’s appeal lies in its extraordinary synthesis of speed, skill, and strategy, making it, arguably, the preeminent sport in the world. Talent runs deep throughout the ranks, yet a select few invariably distinguish themselves from their peers. This offseason, and most notably during Thursday’s rookie showcase, Gavin Brindley and Nikita Prishchepov have emerged as such figures.
Brindley, a dynamic two-way forward, combines elite speed with a high hockey IQ and incisive offensive instincts. Despite a comparatively modest frame of 5’9”, he confronts significantly larger opponents along the boards with remarkable efficacy and poise—a testament to both his skill and competitive character. Witnessing his assertiveness in these battles is, in every sense, a compelling display of the sport’s artistry.
Prishchepov, by contrast, distinguishes himself as a consummate playmaker, endowed with exceptional vision, precise passing, and deft stickhandling. His one-timer, particularly lethal, underscores his offensive versatility, and it is reasonable to anticipate that, upon reaching the main roster, he will make an immediate and meaningful impact on the power play.
Taken together, these developments suggest that the Avalanche possess the requisite talent to mount another deep playoff run. Yet, as ever in hockey, the challenge lies in assembling all of the pieces with cohesion and consistency—a prerequisite for transforming potential into championship reality.
