Is Vegas About To LTIR Cheese Alex Pietrangelo?

Is Vegas About To LTIR Cheese Alex Pietrangelo?

Is Alex Pietrangelo going to be the new Mark Stone? The year the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup, they did so with Stone landing on LTIR during the back half of that regular season. That opportunity may arise again with Vegas poised to cheese the LTIR system again with Alex Pietrangelo.

Pietrangelo, 35, may be in danger of missing the entire 2025-26 NHL Season with an undisclosed injury. If that’s the case, Vegas’ cap sheet this offseason looks very different.

Friedman on 32 Thoughts Pod suggests that, due to an injury, there is some level of uncertainty as to #VegasBorn Alex Pietrangelo's availability next year.

If true, changes a lot about Vegas' summer. Discussion starts at 33 min. https://t.co/JNg5WRqM2E

— Jack Manning (@NHLJackManning) June 7, 2025

VIA “32 Thoughts” podcast:

“You’ll remember that the NHL and the countries have an agreement [about naming Olympic teams],” Friedman said. “The full team is the end of December, but they have to name six players by the end of June. The dates aren’t set up yet, but it sounds like it could potentially be the week of [June] 16th— which is a week and a half from now. I put together a long list for all these teams of who could be on it, and I had Pietrangelo on that list. And someone indicated to me that he might not be available. 

“I don’t have any confirmation on that yet,” finished Friedman. “I still think it’s one of those things where, at this time of year, teams are trying to figure out what their rosters might look like for next year and [if there are] any injury concerns. So, we’ll see what happens with Pietrangelo… But it sounds like there’s at least the possibility that they’re trying to figure out what his health will be like for the start of next season.”

“You saw him in the playoffs. It looked like it could have been anything— knee, hip, groin. I just don’t know,” Friedman said.

Alex Pietrangelo Is Underrated, The Ultimate Professional

Two things from me before we close:

I understand some NHL fans out there are going to throw the challenge flag on this one. It’s pretty obvious that Pietrangelo isn’t faking this. He’s clearly dealing with something. It’s why he skipped the 4 Nations tournament. He also didn’t look right, pretty much all season. If this is one of those things where surgery can fix a problem, they may opt to go down that route.

If Pietrangelo is about to be placed on LTIR, that opens up $8.8 million in cap space. Vegas already had upwards of $9.6 million in cap space, regardless. Is that Mitch Marner music? Does anybody else hear it?

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