CHICAGO – When it came time to walk into the United Center on Friday night, the Vegas Golden Knights still had 12 NHL defencemen on their roster.
They also owned three of the first 15 draft picks.
So the collective focus quickly shifted away from the wheeling and dealing that needs to take place and landed on making the right decisions at the microphone.
“I think when you get closer to the amateur draft everyone’s focus is really on the task at hand,” said Golden Knights assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon. “We just really wanted to make sure that we were dialled in to working the draft grid for our own team as well as we could.”
That was strike one.
Another possibility for fireworks that might rival what we saw earlier in the day – when Artemi Panarin, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brandon Saad, Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta all found new homes – came at the top of the draft itself.
New Jersey (No. 1), Philadelphia (No. 2) and Dallas (No. 3) all had varying levels of interest in dealing away their picks. Except they didn’t garner an offer worthy of doing so.
Devils GM Ray Shero, asked if anyone made him think twice about trading down instead of selecting Nico Hischier, replied flatly: “No.”
Nolan Patrick was viewed as such a valuable asset for the Flyers that Ron Hextall didn’t end up having a tough call to make either. The Stars took a lot of phone calls, but Jim Nill believes he has something special in Finnish defenceman Miro Heiskanen.
“There was some good offers, but in the end when you’ve got a chance to pick No. 3 and pick a high-end defenceman, it was too valuable,” said Nill.
That was strike two.
The most alluring potential surrounded the established players floating across the rumour mill – namely Colorado Avalanche forward Matt Duchene and New York Islanders defenceman Travis Hamonic – but the market dried up on them.
In fact, Avalanche GM Joe Sakic told reporters that he’s now considering keeping Duchene on his roster next season. That’s a surprising statement, especially given the known interest from the Islanders and Nashville Predators, among others.
Alas, the first round blazed by without the type of drama we’ve come to expect.
At least St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong gave us some fodder – acquiring Brayden Schenn from Philadelphia for Jori Lehtera, the 27th pick (Morgan Frost) and a conditional 2018 first-rounder.
In a separate deal, the Blues shipped Ryan Reaves and the No. 51 pick to Pittsburgh for Oskar Sundqvist and the No. 31 pick (Klim Kostin).
Both of those were completed in the final 25 minutes.
The Penguins prioritized the hard-nosed Reaves because they believe their star players have taken too much abuse. It meant sacrificing a prospect in Sundqvist that they would rather not have dealt away.
“When you want to get the guy that’s the best at doing what he does then you have to pay a price,” said Pittsburgh GM Jim Rutherford. “We won the Cup two years ago and teams played us even hard than they usually do. Now we expect the Cup again this year, so it was important to get him.”
The Blues were anxious to shed Lehtera’s salary and paid Philadelphia a high price to do so. The conditional 2018 pick will be converted to a 2019 first-rounder, plus a third-rounder, if it falls in the top-10.
[relatedlinks]
Schenn hit the 25-goal mark the last two seasons and Hextall didn’t want to part with him. He conveyed that message during a quick phone call with the 25-year-old forward on Friday night.
“I wanted him to find out before it was on TV, so it was very brief and I told him that I would follow up with him next week,” said Hextall. “I really like Brayden. I told him that I really like him as a player, he’s a great kid and it’s not easy to do.
“St. Louis came at us, they wanted the player.”
Ultimately, they were the only organization in an aggressive frame of mind during Round 1.
We shouldn’t expect much more action on Saturday – when six rounds tend to whip by in almost the same time as the first one. Vegas has 10 more picks and will be plenty busy with three of them coming in the second round alone.
At least there’s a ray of hope on the horizon for those who love trades because the front office plans to be busy after returning to the desert. They’re going to need to ship out more defencemen.
“That’s right,” said McCrimmon. “We’ll try and stay current for you next week and give you something to do.”
