On paper the Vegas Golden Knights doesn’t look that strong but …
NHL Network: Bruce Boudreau on which team in the Pacific Division he thinks has some work to do after an uneventful offseason.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Erika Wachter: “And you talk about a team that’s been competitive, that’s the Vegas Golden Knights, and they’ve been contending year after year since they’ve come into the league. But you feel like they also haven’t done enough.
Boudreau: “You know what, until I went into a deep dive and started to try to think on how Kelly McCrimmon and George McPhee were trying to think, I think they did a lot of their offseason, and you won’t see it here, but a lot of their offseason signings were done at the trade deadline last year.
Wachter: “Okay.”
Boudreau: “Okay, when they go in, they get (Tomas) Hertl and Hanifin. And if you look at it, those are offseason acquisitions that aren’t really on there, because they signed them to long-term deals right away.
And so, I mean, you add them, because if you look at it just on paper, they lost eight players, that I mean, our NHL guys, and six of them played on the Stanley Cup team, I think, just two years ago.
So, I mean, I’m going, oh, man, they’re rebuilding on the spot. But I mean, and on paper, it doesn’t, when you just look at them, it doesn’t look like they did a lot.
But when you do a deep dive, they’re going to be, if they can stay healthy. That’s the biggest thing with Vegas every year. If they can stay healthy, from the goaltender to Mark Stone to Jack Eichel, if they can even Hertl’s hurt, has got a tendency to get hurt. If they can stay healthy, they will be a really dangerous team and makes the Pacific Division all that much tougher.
Wachter: “So maybe not as much concern with that team about the work they needed to do, but health really is what they’ll need to do.”
Boudreau: “If I looked at it.”
Wachter: “Stay healthy.”
Boudreau: “If I looked at it and didn’t look at Hertl and didn’t look at Hanifin, I’d say, and they lose all that many players, I’d go, oh, what’s going on. But those are two big pieces.”
Boudreau: “It’s a great point by you.”
