The Vegas Golden Knights are reigning Stanley Cup champions, and thanks to that, they don't have much cap space to work with this off-season.
The Golden Knights currently have 21 players under contract but only 11 forwards. Vegas will therefore need to sign some forwards this off-season. Although the Golden Knights have agreed to terms with Adin Hill, the deal has not been finalized and his contract is not impacting their salary cap right now.
But, heading into free agency on July 1, the Golden Knights have an estimated $2,687,516 in cap space, according to CapFriendly. However, Vegas can put Robin Lehner on long-term injured reserve to get a bit more cap space. But with limited space available, the Golden Knights likely won't be too active this summer.
Although Vegas were not going to be too involved this summer, they did make two big moves, re-signing Ivan Barbashev and goaltender Adin Hill to a contract extension.
Yet to make those moves, Vegas had to trade original Golden Knight Reilly Smith to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a draft pick.
Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said to NHL.com about deciding between Berbashev and Smith:
"It's not between Ivan and Reilly. Internally we never made it a decision about one versus the other. I think what we did talk a lot about was Barbashev's impact on our roster when we acquired him from St. Louis. His ability to fit in so seamlessly with Jack Eichel and Jonathan Marchessault to give us a really good top line, and I made the comment when we acquired Ivan that we've been looking for a player like this for some time.
"He's in the prime of his career, we gave up a good, young player to acquire him, he came in, he played extremely well, we won a Stanley Cup, he was a big part of that, we wanted to keep him. So, that's where the conversation began and from there, you start to go through different ways of addressing your salary cap and getting it to where it needs to be."
Vegas Golden Knights' free agents
After re-signing Ivan Barbashev and agreeing to a deal with Adin Hill, there isn't much more the Golden Knights need to do.
Vegas currently have no defenseman becoming free agents. Meanwhile, up front, Phil Kessel and Teddy Blueger are unrestricted free agents, and Pavel Dorofeyev and Brett Howden are restricted free agents. In the net, Jonathan Quick and Laurent Brossoit are pending unrestricted free agents, but with Hill and Logan Thompson under contract, both are likely to walk.
Ultimately, with most of their team under contract, it should be a quiet off-season for the Golden Knights.