Revisiting The Adin Hill Trade
The Robin Lehner injury may have been the best thing to ever happen to the Vegas Golden Knights. The trade for Adin Hill changed the course of history forever. The VGK are Stanley Cup champions and you can’t help but go back and think about the trade that landed the man that would help lead them there between the crease.
Hill, 27, started 14 games for Vegas this postseason and went on to win 11 of them en route to a Cup win. Hill posted a staggering SV% of .934 heading into the deciding game five in Vegas. He secured the win with 30 saves on 33 shots for a SV% of .909, and padded a lot of future money in his pocket along the way. Who knows if Vegas will be able to keep Hill long-term. What matters is his save on Nick Cousins will go down as one of the greatest moments in franchise history.
WHAT A SAVE BY ADIN HILL pic.twitter.com/fFdnZCaoj9
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 4, 2023
Bruce Cassidy and the entire franchise deserve so much credit for getting the most out of Hill. Acquired for just a 4th round pick, expectations for Hill were relatively low. We know the guy was a house at 6-foot-6 but we also knew he was mostly a career backup on some really bad teams. Early in his VGK tenure, Hill looked like the poor man’s Lehner flopping all over the place and letting cookies in the net. Goalie coach Sean Burke deserves so much credit for just calming his game down and letting things come to him.
Adin Hill stepped up when he was needed most, and has certainly earned a raise from the $2.175 million cap hit of his current contract. The only question that remains is, which team is going to pay him? Do the Vegas Golden Knights let him walk in free agency, or do they get a deal done before the critical July first deadline comes around and it becomes a competition for the now Stanley Cup Champion?
