There are solely 4 gamers remaining on the Vegas Golden Knights roster from their inaugural season within the NHL, and so they made positive that one in all them goes to stay with the group for the foreseeable future.
The Golden Knights introduced that they’ve signed defenseman Shea Theodore to a seven-year contract extension that can pay him $7.425 million per season.
It’s a vital contract for a few causes.
Theodore is one in all Vegas’ finest gamers and one in all its prime defensemen. He has been with the group from day one and was a part of the preliminary growth draft course of, coming over from the Anaheim Geese.
The defenseman instantly made an affect on Vegas’ protection and helped the group attain the Stanley Cup Last in its first season because it turn into an immediate contender. In the course of the group’s Stanley Cup-winning season in 2023 he performed over 20 minutes per recreation within the playoffs on the group’s prime protection pairing, scoring one objective with 12 assists through the playoffs.
Together with taking part in a gradual defensive recreation, Theodore can also be one of the vital productive defensemen within the NHL. Since becoming a member of Vegas firstly of the 2017-18 season his 296 factors are sixteenth within the NHL amongst defensemen, whereas his 0.66 level per recreation common is fifteenth within the NHL amongst that group.
His extension additionally considerably weakens this summer time’s potential free-agent class as Theodore was more likely to be one of many prime defenders out there had he gone to the open market.
Vegas has by no means been afraid to spend to the higher limits of the NHL wage cap and can at all times signal large contracts and fear in regards to the potential ramifications later. That is the newest instance of that and so they now have their top-three defenders locked into long-term offers with Theodore, Noah Hanifin and Alex Pietrangelo all signed for greater than $7 million per season.
Together with Theodore, William Karlsson, Brayden McNabb and Zach Whitecloud are the remaining gamers from Vegas’ preliminary 2017-18 roster.
