Even the best make mistakes. In the case of the Vegas Golden Knights, the mistake of the club management in connection with the player deal may cost the champion a place to play the playoffs, writes Tommi Seppälä, the NHL reporter for Sportheil.
24.3. 20:23 • Updated March 24. 20:28
Let’s talk about embarrassing situations for a moment.
It can be embarrassing to be a mild expression of the atmosphere that the NHL club at the Vegas Golden Knights office had on Wednesday when the Russian striker Yevgeny Dadonov returned as if to his job at the gambling oasis.
Vegas traded the striker to Anaheim on Monday, but the NHL rejected the trade because the Ducks were on a list of 10 teams made by the Russian that this was not allowed to trade.
Sometimes players make so-called partial non-transfer clauses in their contracts. Such was what Dadonov made in his contract with Ottawa before he was traded to Vegas last summer. In practice, the player gives the club a list of teams to which this is not allowed to trade in the summer.
The number of teams on the list may vary but Dadonov had ten, including Anaheim.
There is running out of oxygen under the payroll
Vegas has been swaying in the transfer market in recent years with collars standing up to the pattern that the team is starting to make a tight payroll with. In fact, Vegas would have a full healthy lineup of millions of dollars over the payroll. Partly for this reason, the club management relocated the injured person Mark Stonen to the list of long-term injured until the playoffs.
In the so-called LTIR list, Stone’s salary is not included in the salary ceiling. In the playoffs, the pay cap is not used at all, so at that time Stone could return and Vegas would be well above the pay cap. This is how the championship team Chicago performed in the summer of 2015 and Tampa in the summer of 2021.
However, things did not go as they did in Strömsö.
Vegas has plunged into a vastly ridiculous injury spiral of the season. On Tuesday, the team played without their eight regular players. And there isn’t anyone on the sidelines, but players straight from the top chains of the team as well as a key defender Alec Martinez.
Meanwhile, Vegas has lost seven games out of nine and fallen below the playoff line. Since mid-February, the Knights have won only six of the 18 matches.
Listed as a champion favorite before the start of the season, Vegas is even falling out of the playoffs. Therefore, the activation of players on the long-term injured list has become topical. But in order to activate Stone and / or Martinez, the club had to clear space under the payroll.
Martinez’s cap hit is 5.25 and Stone’s 9.5 million, meaning that amount will be added to their salary ceiling this season. The sale of Dadonov to Anaheim would have freed the $ 5 million pay cap.
However, the club leadership did not investigate the situation of the Russian relocation list in sufficient detail – according to North American reports, Vegas’ view was that Dadonov had not submitted the list in time (July 1, 2021).
However, the Russian striker had submitted his list in time.
It’s special that the player trade at all got through the NHL instance, which usually scrutinizes the transfers. How can it be that this party did not have information about the teams to which Dadonov was not allowed to transfer? Partly because of this, Dadonov hung around for a couple of days as if in a loose log before the NHL unpacked the player deal on Wednesday.
According to North American sources, the NHL or the Players Association (NHLPA) does not keep records of clubs to which players who have negotiated an agreement under such an article may not be transferred.
Lists are a secret between player agents and clubs. Like Canadian Sportsnet Elliotte Freidmann well stated, players do not want lists to leak to the public.
The North American media told several stories on Wednesday about how players’ transfer lists have disappeared from their emails altogether after various misconceptions or, for example, have not come to the attention of the changed club management at all.
The NHL and the NHL players’ association should be aware of the listings, so landings like Monday will be avoided in the future. In Dadonov’s case, the Russian player worked well. Had Dadonov agreed to waive the non-transfer clause, the deal with Anaheim could have taken place, but he did not want to do so.
In this way, the player did a great service to his fellow officers. Clubs must respect the clauses in the contract.
The deal can still happen
Vegas can still trade Dadonov, as player trades can be made in the NHL even after the transfer window closes. Dadonov would just not be allowed to play in the new club this season. Since Vegas is ultimately to blame for the situation at hand, breaking Dadonov’s term in March would be a cowardly solution for the club.
Injuries are, of course, bad luck, but ultimately the paycheck is caused by the greedy society itself.
Vegas tried to giggle with a pay cap like Tampa last season. At that time, Tampa moved the Russian star Nikita Kutsherov to the list of long-term injured until the playoffs, which allowed the club leadership to significantly strengthen its troops. At the time of the playoffs, Lightning had millions over the payroll.
Vegas tried to model Tampa’s stencil, but the gimmick hit his own ankle. Had the club management checked the terms of the contract, it would have had 21 teams to trade the striker with.
Now there was a player in the hand who the club didn’t want, but who returned to the locker room and is likely to play against Nashville early Friday.