Golden Knights, Penguins swap Kaeden Korczak, Parker Wotherspoon

According to an announcement from the Vegas Golden Knights, the defending Western Conference champions have traded defenseman Kaedan Korczak to the Pittsburgh Penguins for defenseman Parker Wotherspoon. The Penguins are retaining 50% ($500K) of Wotherspoon’s salary. Emily Kaplan of ESPN was the first to report that Pittsburgh was acquiring Korczak.

Korczak, 25, has spent the last five years with the Golden Knights. However, he has only had a consistent role in the lineup for the last two, scoring three goals and 26 points in 118 games with a +21 rating, averaging 15:40 of ice time per game.

A right-handed shot, there are no areas of the game in which Korczak particularly excels. This isn’t to say he is a bad defenseman by any stretch, though it’s difficult to categorize him into any one specific archetype. He was relatively physical this past season, delivering 102 hits, and had an above-average CorsiFor of 51.7% at even strength. He has managed a 91.1% on-ice SV% throughout his career, but it’s important to mention that he has also been relatively sheltered, beginning 51.6% of his shifts in the offensive zone.

Regardless, at 25 years old, he fits the Penguins timeline a little better than Wotherspoon, who is 28. Assuming the Korczak acquisition means that Pittsburgh is uninterested in retaining Connor Clifton for next season, he will presumably become the right-handed replacement on the team’s bottom-pairing behind Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang.

Meanwhile, the Golden Knights managed to acquire a defenseman coming off a much better year than Korczak for $350K cheaper than the league minimum salary. They’ll likely only have Wotherspoon for one season, but he’s coming off a year in which he registered three goals and 30 points in 80 games with a +17 rating, averaging over 20 minutes of ice time per game.

Furthermore, Wotherspoon is arguably more physical than Korczak, throwing 162 hits last season with 112 blocked shots. Given Vegas’ defensive depth, particularly on the left side, it’s unlikely that Wotherspoon will be relied upon for 20 minutes a night with his new organization. Still, especially at that price, the Golden Knights have made a decent upgrade.

That perceived upgrade isn’t the only motivation for this trade from Vegas’ perspective. Korczak was set to begin a four-year, $13MM contract for the Golden Knights before the 2026-27 campaign. All of a sudden, Vegas now has approximately $7.4M in cap space, which will increase to approximately $8.8M once the team is eligible to place defenseman Alex Pietrangelo‘s contract on the LTIR.