Golden Knights Say Goodbye To Key 2024 Free Agents

Golden Knights Say Goodbye To Key 2024 Free Agents

I feel like I’m talking your ear off with all this news on the Golden Knights. We just know it’s going to be something that’s important to track based on the state of the franchise heading into the 2024 NHL offseason. It would appear that Vegas has already made key decisions on a number of their 2024 unrestricted free agents.

 David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period had a lot of intriguing information about the VGK’s priorities. It would appear Kelly McCrimmon and the rest of the front office have narrowed down the list of players the team wants to keep.

“Here’s what we know so far: forwards Michael Amadio, William Carrier and Anthony Mantha will not be brought back. All three are aware and are planning to test the free agent market July 1. Defenceman Alec Martinez doesn’t appear to have a spot on the blueline any longer; he’ll be 37 in late-July and word is he’s evaluating his options.”

Okay… maybe the word “key” free agents was a bit of a click bait cheese tactic. Regardless, we now know that Amadio, Carrier, and Mantha are all extremely unlikely to return to Vegas. However, there is a lot of reading between the lines that needs to be done here with this report. I’ll explain further to close things out.

Golden Knights: Ways The VGK Can Open Can Space During 2024 NHL Offseason

Fans following this situation should feel very enthusiastic about this news. Let’s translate this report for you. Amadio, Carrier, and Mantha aren’t being offered extensions. In that case, that likely means all efforts will be focused on trying to get deals done for Jonathan Marchessault, Chandler Stephenson, and to a lesser extent Alec Martinez.

This tells me McCrimmon has the right mindset heading into the Summer. The Mantha trade was a bad day from Day one (something I tried to explain when the deal was made). Paul Cotter is already the younger option ready made for the 4th line on the left side. Carrier is too frequently injured to justify paying a higher rate. It will be tough to see Amadio go but at the end of the day, he was a waiver claim. Paying him more than the minimum is just not something this team can justify given where they’re at cap space wise. The fact that McCrimmon gets all of this and has already let those guys know they’re gone should actually bring fans a sense of optimism. He’s using his time on the things that matter.

We already talked about the importance of keeping Chandler Stephenson. I don’t need to explain the case for top goal scorer Marchessault. With Martinez, we did a full write-up on where things stand with him as well. It’s going to be a challenge to retain those three but fans should at least feel encouraged that it’s not a secret that they will be the priority.

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