announced that he would be stepping away from hockey<\/a> due to serious injuries, and that the likelihood of a return to hockey is low. While Pietrangelo didn\u2019t officially announce a retirement, all signs point to the Golden Knights being without their leader in average ice time for each of the last five seasons.<\/p>\nGeneral manager Kelly McCrimmon also completed a trade Sunday night that sent restricted free agent defenseman Nicolas Hague to Nashville for veterans Colton Sissons and Jeremy Lauzon. With so many players entering and exiting the team before free agency even begins, it\u2019s worth looking at where the Golden Knights stand.<\/p>\n
There is still plenty to be settled between now and the start of the season, but here\u2019s how Vegas\u2019 roster currently projects to look on opening night in October.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Hockey-Full-Roster.jpg\")
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Marner gives the Golden Knights an elite play-driver on the wing and boosts an already impressive forward group that led Vegas\u2019 fifth-ranked offensive attack last season. The freshly signed contract also makes Vegas\u2019 cap situation incredibly tight as free agency opens on Tuesday. With Marner\u2019s deal, the Golden Knights have more than $102 million in cap hit allocated to next season, well above the $95.5 million limit. Without Pietrangelo\u2019s $8.8 million cap hit, Vegas would slip just below the cap ceiling, at approximately $93.5 million.<\/p>\n
The first thing that stands out about that projected roster is how much weaker the defensive group is without Pietrangelo and Hague. The former, a two-time Stanley Cup winner, was Vegas\u2019 most relied-upon defenseman, handling more minutes and tougher matchups than any player on the team over the last five years. Losing Pietrangelo is a massive hit to what has been one of the best blue lines in the NHL, not only in that it subtracts a generational talent, but also in the trickle-down effect that asks for more from every defenseman below him.<\/p>\n
Shea Theodore and Noah Hanifin are both excellent players, but neither has played the workhorse role as effectively as Pietrangelo. Brayden McNabb is an iron man coming off perhaps his best season in the NHL, but asking him to play top-pair minutes at this stage of his career may be a stretch. It also means the Golden Knights will be relying on Zach Whitecloud and Kaedan Korczak a lot more than they have in the past, along with the recently-acquired Lauzon (who is a physical presence but has had a negative on-ice goal differential in five of his last six seasons).<\/p>\n
Defense has long been Vegas\u2019 biggest strength. It was the pillar on which their Stanley Cup championship roster in 2023 was built, and has been a clear advantage for the team over the last several years. That could still be the case next season, but there are more questions about the group than there have been in some time.<\/p>\n
That downgrade could bleed into the goaltending. Adin Hill has proven to be a capable starter, setting career-highs in starts and wins last season. He\u2019s athletic for his size and plays his angles well, but he hasn\u2019t proven he\u2019s at the level at which he can transcend the defense in front of him and carry a team to victories regularly. He\u2019ll be starting the first year of his six-year contract extension next season, and the Golden Knights may be counting on him to level up.<\/p>\n
Another offseason need for the Golden Knights is at backup goalie. Ilya Samsonov will hit the open market on Tuesday after his one-year deal expired, and Vegas could look at several veteran backups to replace him. There\u2019s also a chance they will allow Akira Schmid to fill the role. His meager $875,000 cap hit would certainly help manage the salary cap, but considering the team doesn\u2019t want to overwork Hill, they could prefer a more experienced backup. The question is whether they\u2019ll have the cap space to do it.<\/p>\n
There are legitimate concerns on the back end, but up front, the Golden Knights are stacked. They\u2019ve added Marner \u2014 who was fifth in the NHL with 102 points last season \u2014 to the group that already scored the fifth-most goals as a team. The current forward group accounts for a cap hit of $61.4 million, which is the second highest in the NHL, only behind the back-to-back defending champion Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n
Vegas\u2019 top three lines have playmakers galore. Jack Eichel is coming off his best season yet, shattering the franchise records for assists (66) and points (94). If Marner plays on his wing, he\u2019ll arguably be the most talented player Eichel has ever played with. Defending their speed and skill in transition is a frightening proposition, and whoever winds up on the other wing will simply need to skate to the front of the net and the points will roll in.<\/p>\n
Tomas Hertl and Pavel Dorofeyev developed great chemistry this season, and also were the team\u2019s leading scorers on the power play. The combination of Stone and Hertl hasn\u2019t worked in limited opportunities, so perhaps coach Bruce Cassidy shakes these lines out a bit differently, but there\u2019s certainly no lack of talent.<\/p>\n
William Karlsson and Reilly Smith are a perfect match on the third line and create in transition as well as any duo on the team. Brandon Saad showed he still has the wheels to play on that type of line, scoring six goals in 29 regular-season games after signing with Vegas in January.<\/p>\n
Even the fourth line has some scoring punch. Brett Howden and Keegan Kolesar both had career seasons in 2024-25 with 23 and 12 goals, respectively. Sissons is a downgrade from Roy when it comes to offense, but he\u2019s a proven defensive center who can handle tough situations and soak up defensive zone starts.<\/p>\n
Overall, it\u2019s tough to argue the Golden Knights are significantly better or worse than how they ended last season. They certainly look different. They\u2019re built to be more explosive offensively. There are also a lot more questions looming on defense.<\/p>\n
All of that, and free agency hasn\u2019t even opened yet. It\u2019s just another normal day for one of the most active teams in all of the NHL.<\/p>\n
(Photo: Claus Andersen \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free agency has yet to open, but the Vegas Golden Knights already project to look like a completely…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68,3116],"class_list":{"0":"post-29742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114777804620850315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}