The Vegas Golden Knights have big decisions to make heading into free agency

Though they made several big moves heading into the NHL Trade Deadline, the Vegas Golden Knights will have a few things to worry about after their season is over.

Prior to last Friday’s deadline, the Golden Knights gave up a lot of assets to acquire Tomas Hertl from the San Jose Sharks, Noah Hanifin from the Calgary Flames, and Anthony Mantha from the Washington Capitals. All of the moves were made in order to better the reigning Stanley Cup champions’ hopes of going back-to-back.

However, it might come at a cost. Hanifin and Mantha are both unrestricted free agents at the end of this season, as well as Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson. That is going to leave general manager Kelly McCrimmon with some tough choices on who he going to keep with big contracts like Hertl, Jack Eichel and captain Mark Stone on the books for a number of years.

On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Ken Boehlke of Sin Bin Vegas joins Colby Cohen and Tyler Yaremchuk look at the potential problem the Golden Knights might face this offseason.

Ken Boehlke: The plan was, we need to buy some pieces for now and the future. Hanifin’s a guy they probably gonna keep in the future. Hertl’s definitely a guy they have in the future. They definitely claim that this was the plan all along, and that they were going to be very aggressive.

Tyler Yaremchuk: There’s talks about the extension for Hanifin, what does that mean for the futures of Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault? Is the writing potentially on the wall?

Ken: I think the writing’s on the wall to a certain degree. They are going to have maybe $6-$7 million. I would be surprised if they didn’t want to keep Michale Amadio around. The question becomes, “How do they use this summer to buy more cap?” I get the suspicion they view Stephenson a little higher than Marchessault because of the age, because of the face that he plays center. The Golden Knights fanbase, myself, do not agree. If Jonathan Marchessault is not on this team next year, it is an absolute travesty.

You can watch the full segment and the entire episode here…