Free Agent Focus: Vegas Golden Knights

Free agency is now a week away, and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. Even with the UFA crop being thinned out in recent months, there will be some quality veterans set to hit the open market in July, while many teams also have key restricted free agents to re-sign. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Golden Knights.

Key Restricted Free Agents

F Pavel Dorofeyev – The Golden Knights’ breakout sniper has picked the perfect time to cash in. Dorofeyev, a 25-year-old Russian winger and former third-round pick, established himself as one of the league’s premier finishers in 2025-26, setting a career high with 37 goals to go with 64 points in 81 games, more than half of those goals (20) coming on a power play he anchored from the top unit alongside Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner. An RFA with arbitration rights coming off a bargain $1.835MM cap hit, he is in line for an enormous raise, and the offer-sheet chatter that swirled around him in the spring only underscored his value. AFP Analytics projects a long-term pact in the range of six years at $8.465MM annually, or a two-year bridge near $5.649MM; either way, locking up their leading goal scorer is the clear top priority for GM Kelly McCrimmon, with the only real question being how a cap-strapped Vegas team fits the number in.

G Akira Schmid – Pressed into heavy duty by a goaltending carousel, Schmid emerged as the most dependable option Vegas had in net. With Carter Hart sidelined for months by a lower-body injury and Adin Hill enduring an uneven year, the 25-year-old Swiss netminder shouldered a sizable workload and delivered, going 16-10-6 with a 2.59 GAA, a .893 save percentage and two shutouts across 34 appearances, leading all Vegas goalies in each of those rate categories. An RFA who also represented Switzerland at the 2026 Olympics, Schmid is young, cost-controlled and coming off the most extensive NHL action of his career, exactly the kind of asset a cap-strapped team should want to keep. Re-signing him is a straightforward priority, and he could enter next season with a real chance to claim a larger share of the crease.

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

D Rasmus Andersson – The prize of Vegas’ deadline maneuvering, Andersson now headlines its list of difficult decisions. The 29-year-old right-shot defenseman was acquired from Calgary in January at a steep price, a package built around a conditional 2027 first-round pick, and he delivered, posting a career-best 17 goals and 46 points across 80 games between the two clubs while logging more than 21 minutes a night on a second pair alongside former Flames teammate Noah Hanifin. Widely regarded as the top defenseman available should he reach the open market, Andersson will command a hefty multiyear raise on his expiring $4.55MM cap hit. Vegas surrendered too much to treat him as a pure rental, but as Pierre LeBrun reported, the Knights will need to clear significant cap space to get a deal done, making him the franchise’s defining storyline of the summer.

F Reilly Smith – One of the last links to the franchise’s origins, Smith again faces an uncertain future in Vegas. An original Golden Knight and a key piece of the 2023 Stanley Cup team, the 35-year-old winger returned via trade a year ago and gave the Knights 26 points (16 goals, 10 assists) in 69 games, though he found himself a healthy scratch at times as the season wore on. He remains a useful two-way veteran with a championship pedigree, but at his age and with Vegas pressed hard against the cap, a sentimental reunion may be a luxury the Knights can’t afford. A move elsewhere on a cheaper deal looks like the likelier outcome.

F Colton Sissons – Acquired from Nashville last summer, Sissons gave Vegas exactly the kind of dependable bottom-six presence it sought, chipping in 11 points in 66 games while drawing the tough defensive matchups John Tortorella trusts him to handle. The 32-year-old center brings a long track record of playoff reliability dating back to his run to the 2017 Final with the Predators, and that steadiness has value for a team built to win now. Still, with so many bigger contracts to sort out, the pending UFA is the type of complementary piece Vegas may have to let walk and replace internally, barring a cheap re-sign.

F Brandon Saad – A year that began with Stanley Cup aspirations turned into a frustrating one for the veteran winger. Saad, a two-time champion and once a dependable 20-goal scorer, struggled to make an impact in a bottom-six role, managing just three goals and nine points in 49 games while bouncing in and out of the lineup, frequently rotating with Reilly Smith for playing time and losing a stretch to injury. The 33-year-old still brings size and sound two-way habits, but coming off comfortably the least productive full season of his career and with Vegas squeezed against the cap, a return is no certainty. If he is back, it would likely be on another inexpensive one-year deal; otherwise, he profiles as a candidate to seek a fresh start elsewhere.

Other UFAs: F Cole Smith, D Jeremy Lauzon, D Ben Hutton, D Dylan Coghlan

Projected Cap Space

The Golden Knights enter the offseason in their customary spot: right up against the cap, with hard choices to make. Fresh off a run to the Stanley Cup Final, where they fell to Carolina in six games, Vegas must decide how much of that roster it can keep together, and the math is unforgiving. Per PuckPedia, the Knights project to have only about $4.6MM in space beneath the $104MM ceiling, nowhere near enough to comfortably re-sign Dorofeyev, let alone retain pending UFA  Andersson on top of him. That makes salary shedding all but inevitable; McCrimmon will almost certainly have to move money out to fit Dorofeyev’s raise, and keeping Andersson likely hinges on clearing even more. Complicating matters, Vegas holds no picks in the first two rounds of either the 2026 or 2027 drafts, the cost of years of aggressive trades, which leaves the front office short on cheap, controllable reinforcements. As ever with this group, expect McCrimmon to find a way to stay competitive, but something, or someone, will have to give.

Salary cap information via PuckPedia.