Kelly McCrimmon Is Handling The VGK Farm System Just Fine

Kelly McCrimmon Is Handling The VGK Farm System Just Fine

Steven Ellis over at Daily Faceoff released his prospect rankings for the Golden Knights recently and it needs to be talked about. Mostly because it’s clear and obvious that Ellis has no idea what he’s talking about. Sorry, not sorry, but Ellis clearly has no idea how to evaluate any of this stuff.

Let’s just get right down to business here. I’m going to share a line from his post that just proves Ellis is totally clueless.

“There just isn’t much to get excited about here. Beyond Connelly, we’re talking about mostly depth players at most positions. The Golden Knights have traded so many impact players to get players they need in the moment, and it paid off in 2023.”

Can anyone get in touch with Ellis and tell him I’ll happily debate him any day of the week. The statement of “traded so many impact players” is just factually incorrect. Beyond Nick Suzuki (who no Vegas fan was in favor of. Everybody with a brain hates Max Pacioretty) name one prospect the VGK lost sleep over trading.

Name one impact prospect the VGK traded away.

You can’t.

What’s the argument here that they shouldn’t have made the Jack Eichel trade because they gave up Peyton Krebs who has done nothing?

Or the Noah Hanifin trade because Miromanov, who never would have cracked their lineup, was included in the deal with Calgary?

Or David Edstrom who was the last pick in the first round back in 2023 and is regarded as a defensive third line center if everything goes well? As if we’re going to pretend that trade with San Jose for Tomas Hertl wasn’t total highway robbery.

This is a real fact. Putting Suzuki aside again (who Vegas couldn’t afford right now anyway and nobody likes Pacioretty) Cody Glass has the highest point total (71 total points) out of any prospect the team traded in team history. Glass was just dumped by the Predators who had to give up draft picks just to get rid of him.

Again… name one impact player the Golden Knights traded away that hurt their farm system? Erik Brannstrom is next on the list who was included in the Mark Stone trade. A highway robbery win for Vegas.

I understand that Ellis clearly gets horny over prospects but he’s factually incorrect and I’ll happily debate him any day of the week. If anything, McCrimmon should be praised for the way he’s used those assets to collect real NHL players. Not to mention the fact that he might have struck gold by stealing away Alexander Holtz from New Jersey.

How about this line from Ellis:

“Their drafting has been fine, given you can only work with what you’re given. But when the Golden Knights fall, they’ll collapse – and hard.”

What collapse? That’s just so foolish. As if players won’t rush to join Vegas if they actually have a down year and actually have cap space to burn (which seven years in hasn’t happened yet). By the way, they’re statistically the most winningest franchise in NHL history and are doing so as a recent expansion team. The hate this team gets continues to be idiotic and the prospect narrative is just another example of that.

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