Golden Knights May Look to Shop Nic Hague

After a down 2021-22 season, the expectation from everyone in the Vegas Golden Knights organization is that they will once again contend for a Stanley Cup in 2022-23.

With the immense talent on their roster, there is plenty of reason to believe that could very well be the case. However, in order to round out their team, they will need to figure out a way to free up some cap space, something which they were severely lacking last season.

One player who hasn’t received a ton of discussion but could be on his way out of town is Nicolas Hague. The 23-year-old, who is currently a restricted free agent, has improved in each and every season since being selected in the second round (34th overall) by the Golden Knights in the 2017 draft.

In 52 games this past season, Hague scored four goals and 14 points while averaging a career high 18:40 in ice time. While by no means a finished product, he is still rounding out his game and has top four potential. Due to his improvements, he is without a doubt in line for a pay raise from his cap hit of $791,667 over the past three seasons, and the Golden Knights may very well not be able to keep him around.

Recently, it was reported by Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News that at least two teams in the Eastern Conference have expressed serious interest in Hague. While those teams remain anonymous, you can understand why they would be interested along with likely many others. Everyone is aware of the cap crunch the Golden Knights find themselves in, meaning they may be able to acquire the young defenceman for a relatively cheap price. With free agency set to begin in two weeks time, there will likely be plenty more speculation surrounding Hague in the near future.