The Vegas Golden Knights are heading into the summer with more than a little unfinished business.
After reaching the Stanley Cup Final last season and falling to the Carolina Hurricanes, Vegas could have taken a step back and treated the offseason like a breather. Instead, the expectation around the team is that the action is just getting started.
That’s the read from NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, who said on the latest episode of the “32 Thoughts” podcast that this won’t be a quiet stretch for the Golden Knights.
“This is not going to be a quiet summer. There's going to be tremors, and maybe even earthquakes, all the way through.
And this is one team that I don't think we've heard the last of. At least I think they'll try,” Friedman said.
Friedman didn’t attach a long list of names to Vegas, but he did point to Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin as a possible target.
“I still think, Kyle, that they will be trying to do something. Whether it's Larkin or it's something else, I don't think we- it's just not their DNA.”
The Larkin talk has been building for a while. A few days earlier, TSN sportscaster Darren Dreger had already pegged the Detroit captain as a strong fit for the Golden Knights.
And the speculation didn’t start with the media. Friedman said Larkin asked for a trade on June 4, with The Canadian Press, via TSN, reporting that the Red Wings captain identified Vegas, the Minnesota Wild, and the Florida Panthers as his three preferred landing spots.
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Alex Pietrangelos arrival helped stabilize the blue line and pushed the Knights toward their first championship, while the trade for Jack Eichel gave them the kind of top-center talent that can change a teams ceiling overnight. Add in the selection of Marc-Andre Fleury and the more recent addition of Mitch Marner, and it is easy to see why fans keep revisiting which move mattered most, because in Vegas, the next great argument often starts with the last one. [Read more 🡒]
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The concern is that those strengths can also age into pressure points, especially for a club that was cited as the NHLs third-oldest at 30.05 years old. Analysts pointed to the Knights age and goaltending as the biggest reasons for caution, while also noting that this organization has never been shy about making aggressive roster moves if it thinks a window is still open. That leaves Vegas in an interesting spot, with the ceiling still obvious but the margin for error looking thinner than it did a year ago. [Read more 🡒]