COULD KESLER HELP THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS?

TORONTO, ON — The Vegas Golden Knights will soon find themselves in a salary cap dilemma once centre Jack Eichel is ready to hit the ice and lace up his skates for his new team.

The Knights will need to clear almost a full $10 million in cap space in order to accommodate Eichel’s $10 million cap hit once he’s in game shape, which is expected to be some time in or around February.

It goes without saying, Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon is exploring all his options and while he may not have pursued all of them to date, he’ll be upping his efforts this month to find ways to fit Eichel under the cap.

One potential casualty of Vegas’ tight cap situation is forward Reilly Smith, who is in the final year of his contract and can become an unrestricted free agent in July. He’s the guy everyone points to as an obvious suitor to be dealt. But he only clears $5 million off the cap and is one of the original misfits on the team.

And for those curious, Alec Martinez, currently on LTIR, is expected to be back during the season, while Max Pacioretty will return in at least a month after undergoing wrist surgery last week. Using either of their cap figures doesn’t help in this situation.

The Athletic’s Jesse Granger provided some options in his article on Friday that would help the Golden Knights trim $2.225 million in space by waiving Ben Hutton, Michael Amadio and Adam Brooks, leaving the team with roughly $6.95 million in cap space. They could waive or trade another player to give themselves even more breathing space. But that doesn’t fully solve their problem.

Enter Ryan Kesler.

Well, Kesler’s contractual rights, that is.

The Golden Knights are not afraid to spend money. They’ve got the pockets to do so. By acquiring Kesler’s rights from the Anaheim Ducks, they’d still have to pay him the balance of his $6.675 million salary, but they’d be able to utilize his $6.875 million cap hit in LTIR overage space and exceed the cap by that amount – something teams have done and continue to do.

It is an option the Golden Knights are weighing and one that would help them hit their mark, and get Eichel in a Vegas sweater without cap concerns. And those options are fairly limited.

Buffalo acquired Johnny Boychuk’s rights this season to help them get cap compliant. The Sabres would still be over the $60.2 million lower limit if they dealt Boychuk and his $6 million cap space now, so he could be worth a conversation.

Dallas goalie Ben Bishop’s playing career has ended, and he carries a hit of just over $4.916 million this season and next, but the Stars are in cap trouble themselves and Bishop’s LTIR overage allowance is helping them out.

Chicago’s Andrew Shaw and his $3.9 million LTIR usage could be a nice combo add if Vegas wanted even more cap flexibility after acquiring Kesler or Boychuk’s rights.

Kesler does own an eight-team no-trade list, but I can’t imagine he’d get in the way of a paper transaction, one of which lowers his overall tax payout in Nevada. And while the Ducks are in the thick of things in the Pacific Division, they aren’t deviating from their plan — adding young assets and/or draft picks would fit that narrative.

As our friends at CapFriendly have explained, simply acquiring Kesler’s cap hit won’t work — the Knights would need to send money back and Smith may still be a casualty of circumstance — but unless Martinez and Pacioretty somehow find themselves on LTIR for the rest of the season, the Knights have to find a way to make it work.

McCrimmon and Co. drew up plenty of scenarios when they acquired Eichel back in November, so at least internally they did their due diligence. They have about a month to figure this out and we’ll likely hear more on this subject as the weeks progress.

COYOTES ARE HERE TO HELP

It may still be a little early in the trading season, but if teams are looking to move some money around, the Arizona Coyotes are one of the teams willing to help. For a price, of course.

The Coyotes are hovering around a $75 million cap figure, which will eventually drop when they deal away Phil Kessel and some of their other pending free agents closer to the trade deadline. They’ve got cap space to play with and if they are incentivized to take on a contract, GM Bill Armstrong is all ears.

One thing the Coyotes are unlikely to do, however, is retain salary in a three-way deal. Arizona is already eating money on two players this season – Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Darcy Kuemper – and only have room to pay up to 50% of one other player’s contract, presumably reserved for Kessel and his $6 million cap hit.

But when it comes to taking on a full contract, the Coyotes will be a team to watch leading up to the March 21 trade deadline.

SCHEDULE UPDATES

The NHL is expected to release updates and revisions to the 2021-22 regular-season schedule as early as this week, though I’m not sure all 90 games currently postponed – 81 due to COVID – will have new dates announced right away.

February will be used to make up a good chunk of games, while others currently on the schedule for later in the year could be moved up to make travel easier on clubs. Each team will still have at least one week off next month, counting as their bye week, while NHL All-Star Weekend is still a go.