Marcus Kruger Could Be Flipped By Vegas Golden Knights

After acquiring Marcus Kruger in a long-expected trade yesterday, the Vegas Golden Knights may not be keeping him around very long. John Shannon of Sportsnet tweeted last night that the team had yet to make up their mind on whether to keep him or not, while Brian Hedger of NHL.com today reported that a second trade is likely for the former Blackhawks center.

Kruger was due a $2MM signing bonus on July 1st, meaning that even though he comes with a $3.08MM cap hit, any acquiring team would only have to pay out $1.475MM in actual salary this season. Next year, the salary drops on its own to $2.3MM. For a team that has the cap room, grabbing two years of Kruger for less than $4MM in total salary is extremely affordable.

Though Chicago couldn’t afford him going forward, Kruger remains a useful player. Even with little offensive upside an effective checking center is an important piece to any team, and one who comes at a discount and is still relatively young—Kruger turned 27 in May—would be interesting to several teams. He’s even received Selke votes as the top defensive forward twice in his career, and has two Stanley Cups under his belt already.

Teams like Pittsburgh, New York or even Anaheim could use a good checking center, though they each have internal options as well. Craig Custance of The Athletic chimes in with Carolina as a possible destination as well. It’s not like there would be a dozen teams breaking down the door to acquire him, but it shouldn’t be a hard flip if the Golden Knights choose to. That said, Vegas themselves could use him if they wanted. The Golden Knights have a large group of players who could play center for them next year, but few outside of William Karlsson are experienced in a purely checking role. If they wanted to stick players like Erik Haula and Jon Marchessault full-time on the wing, Kruger could be a useful piece down the middle.

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