2:23 p.m.: The Knights and Rangers have made the trade official as reported.
12:58 p.m.: The Golden Knights are acquiring winger Reilly Smith from the Rangers in exchange for the Sharks’ 2025 third-round pick and forward prospect Brendan Brisson, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports. Vegas doesn’t have the space to accommodate Smith’s already-reduced $3.75MM cap hit, so New York is retaining 50% of his salary, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. The Golden Knights have an open roster spot and won’t need to make a corresponding transaction.
It’s a reunion for Smith and Vegas, where he was a top-six fixture from the Knights’ inception through their run to the 2023 Stanley Cup championship. Cap constraints following the championship run influenced Vegas to deal Smith, who turns 34 next month, to the Penguins for a third-round pick. His tenure in Pittsburgh was underwhelming, limited to 13-27–40 in 76 games – halving his goal production from his final season with the Knights despite seeing consistent second-line deployment with the Pens alongside Evgeni Malkin.
Multiple reports indicated Smith wasn’t pleased with the move, which he couldn’t block with only a 12-team no-trade list. In addition to coming off a championship and playing a formative role in Vegas’ development as a franchise, he’d signed a three-year, $15MM extension with Vegas the prior offseason. The Penguins, content to find someone else to replace Smith’s minutes, flipped him to the Rangers last summer for a second- and fifth-round pick while retaining 25% of his salary.
Smith’s production didn’t rebound at all in the Big Apple. He’s scoring goals at the exact rate per game, and his point-per-game pace has dropped from 0.53 with the Pens to 0.50 with the Blueshirts. The veteran has 10-19–29 through 58 games and is on pace to register his fewest shots on goal in a season since his rookie year with the Stars in 2012-13.
During his first six-year tenure in Vegas, Smith averaged 26 goals and 59 points per 82 games. It’s unlikely he captures quite that much production on a per-game basis down the stretch given his recent decline, but he adds a familiar name to a bit of a hodgepodge group of wingers in Nevada. The team turned to the bargain bin on the free agent market last summer after losing Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Marchessault, center Chandler Stephenson, and serviceable depth scorer Michael Amadio to free agency, picking up names like Victor Olofsson and Tanner Pearson on the cheap. They also inked veteran Brandon Saad mid-season after he mutually terminated his contract with the Blues.
They’ve gotten solid showings out of Olofsson and Pearson. They are enjoying a 24-goal breakout campaign from Pavel Dorofeyev, but depth on the wings remained the Golden Knights’ most enormous hole on paper heading into the trade deadline. They’ll address it here instead of a more significant, complex acquisition like star Mikko Rantanen, who they were linked to this morning. That aligns with what general manager Kelly McCrimmon predicted for his club earlier this week.
Dealing Smith continues the Rangers’ unloading of pending UFAs for futures ahead of the deadline, but that will mark the extent of their selling as they remain in the Eastern Conference wild card race. They also shipped out defenseman Ryan Lindgren and winger Jimmy Vesey to the Avalanche over the weekend.
The most intriguing part of their return lies in Brisson, whom Vegas selected 29th overall in the 2020 draft. The 23-year-old winger was expected to compete for a roster spot out of camp this season amid the Knights’ aforementioned turnover. While he landed the gig, he had no points in nine games before being sent to AHL Henderson. His minor-league performance this season has been nothing short of disastrous, limited to 5-14–19 in 45 games with a team-worst -24 rating. His trade value was slashed as a result.
New York hopes Brisson can rebound to his 2023-24 form with their affiliate in Hartford. He looked promising with 38 points in 52 AHL games last year and even tallied a respectable 2-6–8 scoring line in 15 games of NHL action, the first of his career. With the move, the Golden Knights have now traded all of their first-round selections in franchise history outside of last year’s pickup, Trevor Connelly.
Smith’s absence will also continue an expanded youth movement in New York, which really started when the Rangers began scratching Smith for trade protection a few days ago. There’s more guaranteed ice time for names like Brett Berard and Brennan Othmann, and potentially even Brisson depending on his first impression in the AHL, down the stretch.
As for Vegas, they now have just roughly $500K in cap space, per PuckPedia. Unless they determine William Karlsson’s or Shea Theodore’s injuries will hold them out for the rest of the regular season, there’s no LTIR flexibility for them to dip into.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.