Going into their very first entry draft, the Vegas Golden Knights currently have just seven selections. It doesn’t sound like they will make just seven picks though, as GM George McPhee told Pierre LeBrun in a recent interview. 
Yeah we’re expecting to have more [picks]. Just in the conversations we’ve had to date, it looks like we’ll be able to pick up some picks—and good ones.
McPhee went on to say that he hopes to be able to announce some deals next week, confirming that he does have some side-dealing already in place surrounding the expansion draft. Obviously the Golden Knights don’t have any players to trade, and moving draft picks out of the system isn’t likely. That means the deals are expected to be teams basically trading an asset in order to protect the players they want in the draft.
We want to be a real competitive club, we want to be as good as we can, but we also have to be mindful that we’d like to be in a surplus situation here in the next two or three drafts where we have extra picks. Our best players are going to have to come through the entry draft. I don’t think we’re going to get our best players through the expansion draft.
The Golden Knights’ GM seems to be thinking right along the lines of many in the media who have claimed that the available players will be extremely short on high-end skill. While there should be some talented two-way defenders and a couple of legitimate starting goaltenders, top line forwards are almost completely unavailable.
Especially because the Golden Knights fell out of the first few picks in the entry draft this year (though they’ll pick third in rounds 2-7), high-end talent will need to come from a bit lower in the draft this season. Getting more picks increases your chances to hit an explosive talent, though it is still not guaranteed.
McPhee also touched on the free agent window his team will be granted starting on June 18th, saying that he would be “aggressive” to try and sign talent. The team could sign any unrestricted free agent or unprotected restricted free agent, though it would forfeit its expansion pick from that team in the process. Remember that teams will be holding off on re-signing their free agents until after the draft because they can’t afford to have to protect them, giving McPhee a chance to change their mind. It’s not clear who they would go after, but again the idea of skilled forwards comes up if the team wants to compete right away.