Adin Hill: Was The Extension Smart By Vegas?

Adin Hill: Was The Extension Smart By Vegas?

The Golden Knights inked starting goalie Adin Hill to a six-year contract extension that will carry an AAV of $6.25 million. Hill cashes in on a new long term deal but was this actually a smart move by Kelly McCrimmon and the rest of the front office in Vegas? Let’s talk about it.

Before we dive into the weeds on this one, the elephant in the room needs to be mentioned before anything else. It’s no secret that the salary cap is spiking. If you have a good team, the smartest thing you can do right now is lock all of those pieces in place before there is a major shift in the market… and that’s coming.

That’s exactly what McCrimmon has done with his group. Vegas had a ton of pending UFA’s that needed to be signed and they have essentially taken all of them off the market. Shea Theodore (link), Brayden McNabb (link), Brett Howden (link), Keegan Kolesar (link), and now Hill have all been successfully retained.

Vegas’ cap sheet is still in fairly good shape despite taking care of a ton of their own guys. Here is a quick rundown on where things stand after the deal with Hill:

Available Space: $10,490,000

Nine forwards and seven D are under contract for next year.

UFA: Smith, Olofsson, Pearson, Saad, Samsonov

RFA: Hague, Holtz, Rondbjerg, Lavoie, Schwindt

This is just my guess and feel free to take it with a grain of salt but I advise you maybe listen since I don’t exactly think it’s coincidental that this deal with Hill comes 48 hours within me writing this post up…

My guess is that Smith and Saad will be attempted to be retained on cheap short term deals. Given Smith’s history with Vegas, that feels like a given. Given that Saad flushed money down the toilet to join Vegas, that feels like a strong chance too and apparently he’s already bought a house in Vegas. $2.5 million each?

Hague’s RFA deal probably in the $4 million range?

Cheap RFA deal for Holtz and bring up Lindbom as the backup goalie? That pretty much feels like the team for next year. It’s a matter of if McCrimmon can also strike a deal for a quality winger. Maybe an Alex Tuch reunion?

This is the thing about Hill. No, he’s probably not a top ten goalie but he’s so damn big (6-foot-6) and he takes up the whole damn net. When he’s on with the way Vegas defends, they’ve already proven they can win it all with this formula. However, this is the thing that really pushed the deal to the finish line. Ilya Samsonov sucks and the list of available goalies in free agency looks like this…

All things considered, signing Hill makes a ton of sense despite the fact that it feels like a long time. The hope is that one of these goalie prospects (Lindbom, Schmid, and Moysevich) can eventually work their way into the rotation as a cheap backup. Hard to complain about the deal when you add it all up.

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