The Vegas Golden Knights fell short once again in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They were eliminated in semi-finals in six games by the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday evening.

This is the second year in a row that the scoring dried up for the Golden Knights and their lack of a true top line center became evident. Chandler Stephenson is an underrated player, but he’s not the number one center that they need.

The brings us to Jack Eichel. After their elimination, the Golden Knights have entered the Eichel rumor mill. He certainly fits the need in Vegas for a top line center and they like to make a splash. They’ve added big name players like Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, and Alex Pietrangelo. They won’t shy away from chasing a big fish again to get over the hump and go a Stanley Cup while their window remains open.

Salary Cap

The first hurdle that the Knights would need to clear is their salary cap situation. According to Cap Friendly, they’ll have just over $6 million in cap space this offseason. They only have three players that will be unrestricted free agents in Tomas Nosek, Alec Martinez, and Mattias Janmark. One would assume they’ll let all three of those players hit the open market at the end of July.

The $6 million in cap space is clearly not enough to take on Eichel’s $10 million cap hit. They’ll need to move someone off the roster to create cap space. They have eight players on their roster that have three years or longer remaining on their deals. Five of those eight players have no-trade protection of some variety.

Two other players under consideration they could move are Pacioretty and Marc-Andre Fleury. Pacioretty has two more years remaining on his deal and he also carries no-trade protection. Fleury also a modified no-trade clause, but he may be willing to go to a team that will give him an opportunity to start. He has one year remaining one his contract with a $7 million cap hit.

The easiet player for the Knights to move would be winger Reilly Smith. The 30-year-old has one more year remaining with a $5 million cap hit and has no trade protection. He’s a player that could be included into a deal with the Sabres as a “cap dump” that the Sabres could flip later for more assets.

Dimitri Filipvoic and I discussed this on the latest The Hockey PDOcast. At the time I couldn’t figure out how the cap would work for them in a trade for Eichel. Now, after looking into it further, it’s not that big of a problem to figure out.

Prospects

The Golden Knights clearly won’t have a top 10 pick to offer the Sabres, therefore they’ll need to include at least two of their top prospects in any type of deal. The first player that is a must is 2019 17th overall pick Peyton Krebs. He would have been a top-10 pick in that draft if he didn’t suffer a partially torn achillies about a month prior to the draft.

Krebs didn’t see any time in the postseason with the Golden Knights due to a jaw injury he suffered back in May. There may have been more hype around if he had the opportunity to play in these important games.

The 20-year-old played in a handful of leagues this year. He was part of the Canadian World Junior team that won Silver. He then went on to play 24 games as captain of the Winnipeg Ice in WHL. Krebs scored 13 goals and 43 points in those 24 games with the Ice.

🚨 @peytonkrebs12 goes backwards, between the legs!#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/YTsUPOSbxm

— #WorldJuniors (@WorldJuniors) January 1, 2021

After that, he was able to get some pro experience as well. Krebs got in five games with Henderson Silver Knights of the AHL. In those five contests, he registered one goal and five points. Lastly, he even got some NHL action with the Golden Knights. He appeared in four NHL games and recorded one assist.

The other well known prospect with Golden Knights is winger Cody Glass. He was selected sixth overall back in the 2017 NHL Draft. The 22-year-old has bounced between the NHL and AHL the last two years failing to solidify a role in the NHL. He has nine goals and 22 points in his 66 NHL games.

A change of scenery would probably be good for the Canadian-born winger, but he no longer holds the title of the top prospect in the Golden Knights’ system. It’s still a small sample of only 66 games, but his offensive impacts have been poor. Especially when you consider the team that he has been playing on. You’ll see below how bad he has graded out in Evolving Hockey’s goals above replacement model.

If he has shown above-average finishing ability at any pro level I would be more willing to see him as a major piece in a trade. To be clear, I’d be interested in having him as part of the deal. However, he can’t be the main prospect the Sabres would be getting back in this trade scenario.

The last prospect that could be interesting for the Sabres is 2020 first-round pick Brendan Brisson. The 19-year-old forward was part of the loaded team at the University of Michigan this past season. He scored 10 goals and 21 points in 24 games as a freshman.

Brisson has a good shot and his finishing ability carried over to his first year with the Wolverines. I like the way he finds the soft spots in the defense in the offensive zone when I watched him this year.

🍎Jake Sanderson’s first point of the tournament set up Brisson’s goal #WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/Xrt5MGMHLM

— Sens Prospects (@SensProspects) December 27, 2020

Roster Players

Michael Russo of The Athletic wrote in his latest piece that Kevyn Adams is looking for futures in return for Eichel. If that is indeed the case, it’s unlikely they’ll be looking to take any players off of the roster besides a money dump.

If they do want to grab a player off the roster to help now, then there are two players that they should consider.

The player at the top of the list is Alex Tuch. The 25-year-old forward is still in his prime and is signed to a team-friendly long-term deal. He has five years remaining on his contract with a $4.75 million contract. Now that he’s healthy, Tuch has grown into a good two-way top-six forward.

He would be a good fit for the Sabres if the plan is to try to turn things around quickly in Buffalo. His age doesn’t restrict him from being part of a younger new core.

The other player they could consider to boost their blue line is defenseman Zach Whitecloud. The 24-year-old is a right-shot defenseman that could play in a defensive role with the Sabres. That spot will likely be vacated by the departure of Jake McCabe as a free agent.

You’ll see in Micah McCurdy’s impact chart above that he’s not going to give you much of anything offensively. His defensive ability makes him a candidate to play on the right side with offensive-minded defenders like Rasmus Dahlin or Owen Power if he is selected first overall.

Conclusion

The Golden Knights have their first-round picks the next two years they can throw into this deal too, but they’ll be at the end of that round. If the Sabres do want a futures only deal they could get a package from Vegas that would net them Krebs, Brisson, Reilly Smith, 2021 and 2022 first-round pick.

The two first-round picks are because of how late they’ll be in the first round and their lack of a young roster player under 24-years-old.

If the Sabres wanted to get a package that adds a piece or two to help them win now they can look at something like Tuch, Krebs, Smith, Brisson, and a 2021 first-round pick.

At the end of the day, the best thing for the Sabres would to be get another team as a real suitor in the Eichel sweepstakes. The last week or so we’ve heard about more teams being out than in on an Eichel trade. The Ducks are essentially the main team left standing at this point.

Getting the Golden Knights into the mix could set up a bidding war between two division foes. Even if the Ducks end up being the landing spot, they may be able to squeeze Trevor Zegras out of them if there’s another legitimate threat in the conversation.

Data via: Evolving Hockey and Hockeyviz.com

Photo Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images