Danny Webster of NHL.com: Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury is hopeful that both he and Robin Lehner are back next season with the Vegas Golden Knights.
They have a combined salary cap hit $12 million. Fleury is in the last year of his deal at a $7 million cap hit. Lehner has four years left a $5 million cap hit.
Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon:
“The Jennings Trophy is a good indicator with how good it worked. Those two goaltenders were front and center in any success we had in that regard. I think it helped us in the playoffs as well. We were very fortunate to have two goaltenders as good as they were.
“In regards to what lies ahead, we’ve been done for 48 hours, not even. Those are things that will have to be discussed as we get ready for the offseason and going into next year. We’ll get to that in due course.”
The Golden Knights don’t have a lot of salary cap space and pending UFAs in Alec Martinez, Mattias Janmark and Tomas Nosek.
Tom Callahan of Vegas Hockey Now: The salary cap hit of Marc-Andre Fleury’s contract has become an albatross for the Vegas Golden Knights.
Fleury has a $7 million salary cap hit but only $6 million in salary on the last year of his deal. He had 26-10-0 record this past season with a 1.98 GAA and .928 save percentage.
Someone could trade for Fleury and use him as an asset at the trade deadline if they are not in a playoff race.
Logan Thompson appears ready for NHL duty and could be their backup next year.
The goalie market will be crowded with a large group of free agents – Frederik Andersen, Tuukka Rask, Jordan Binnington, Devan Dubnyk, Philipp Grubauer, Antti Raanta, and James Reimer.
The Golden Knights do have the space to make it work with both Fleury and Lehner next year as well if they so chose.
