NHL Teams are exploiting the Golden Knights - Just like they did to them

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S. Harper
August 1, 2022 (6:52 PM)

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Many NHL teams aswell as fans around the League felt the Vegas Golden Knights were given everything on a silver platter since joining the NHL back in 2017. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman really wanted the Golden Knights to succeed.

However, after the Golden Knights exposed other teams players, they also brokered trades with teams to take some of their over-priced players off their hands in exchange for draft picks.

Now, one player agent believes teams are looking for payback against the Golden Knights General Manager Kelly McCrimmon for the Golden Knights own struggles now when it comes to cap management.

That agent is Allen Walsh who represents many of the NHL's top players including Marc Andre Fleury who was the Golden Knights inaugural goaltender. Walsh would tweet his displeasure on how Fleury was disrespected in Vegas by former coach Peter Deboer before he was traded to Chicago.

So it's no secret Walsh and the Golden Knights don't really like each other. Vegas traded away two of his biggest clients�Marc-Andre Fleury�and�Max Pacioretty�for next to nothing to the Carolina Hurricanes because of cap situations.

So Carolina probably just sat there and said, you know what, we'll take the contract we'll take it. We want the player. We like the player. You know, we can make 7 million work, but you're going them to us for free. And I mean, you gotta imagine there was a little bit of a message being delivered here. Could it have been a seventh round pick or a sixth round pick? I think Carolina intentionally said we'll do this, but we're going to make it future considerations because it kind of embarrassed Vegas to have to do that and in many ways exposed their cap mismanagement. And there were several other GMs along the way that commented to me how they thought the way that trade was structured was intentional on Carolina's part.

Walsh believes that the Golden Knights are getting payback on how they did business with other teams. He referred to the Max Pacorietty trade, where the Hurricanes offered very little in return and Vegas was almost forced to take it. The Golden Knights are also rumoured to be trying to trade Jack Eichel who hasn't turned out to be the jackpot McCrimmon hoped.