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 certainly one of them goes to stay with the staff for the foreseeable future.
The Golden Knights introduced that they’ve signed defenseman Shea Theodore to a seven-year contract extension that may pay him $7.425 million per season.
It’s a important contract for a few causes.
Theodore is certainly one of Vegas’ greatest gamers and certainly one of its high 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 staff attain the Stanley Cup Remaining in its first season because it turn into an prompt contender. Through the staff’s Stanley Cup-winning season in 2023 he performed over 20 minutes per recreation within the playoffs on the staff’s high protection pairing, scoring one aim with 12 assists through the playoffs.
Together with enjoying a gentle defensive recreation, Theodore can be one of the crucial productive defensemen within the NHL. Since becoming a member of Vegas at first 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 season’s potential free-agent class as Theodore was prone to be one of many high defenders accessible 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 all the time signal huge contracts and fear concerning 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.
