The Red Wings’ trade for Vegas Golden Knights forward Keegan Kolesar was made because the Golden Knights needed to make salary cap space.
As such, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Danny Webster reports that Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon expressed regret about having to trade a long-time “misfit”…
Kolesar became a full-time NHL player during the shortened 56-game season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and has been one of the Knights’ more reliable and durable players since. He played in 439 games as a primary fourth liner, scoring 120 points in six years.
“I think we’ll have a friendship forever,” general manager Kelly McCrimmon said Wednesday. “I hope he does great. I’ll be the first guy to come shake his hand in the dressing room when we play Detroit. These are decisions that have to be made that aren’t easy.”
Kolesar was a key enforcer during the Knights’ Stanley Cup championship run in 2023. He’s played in 207 consecutive regular season games. His Knights tenure ended as a healthy scratch in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Kolesar had two years remaining on a three-year, $7.5 million contract he signed in December 2024. That season, he scored a career-high 12 goals and 30 points.
The move gives the Knights $6.175 million in cap space. This doesn’t account for winger Victor Olofsson reportedly returning to the Knights.
And this morning, the ever-opinionated Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press gives Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman rare praise for adding to “team toughness” through the Kolesar trade and the addition of free agent forward Viktor Arvidsson.
Monarrez believes that the trade an signing show an assertiveness that’s usually absent from Yzerman’s managerial moves:
Kolesar is a third- or fourth-liner considered a tough forechecker, wins battles along the boards and has played all seven years of his career with a team defined by toughness and dogged determination.
Signing Arvidsson to a two-year, $10 million deal could be the start of the ideological shift toward toughness Yzerman professed he wants to see from his team. The top-six forward had 25 goals amid 54 points last year despite only being 5-10 and 181 pounds. But he’s always been known as a scrappy player who fight for pucks, goes into corners and gets dirty goals in front of the net.
It just so happens that Arvidsson played for the Kings for three seasons when [Todd] McLellan was their coach. That means he and Yzerman know exactly what they’re getting (and how they plan to use him) on the ice and, maybe more importantly, in the dressing room.
What the two players have in common is toughness in their DNA. Adding them reminded me of the most resonant thing any Wings player said at the end of the season. The words came from defenseman Simon Edvinsson, one of the Wings’ toughest players.
Edvinsson mentioned two teams specifically that embodied tough doggedness, which he felt was part of “a championship mentality.”
“They get a piece of you every time to bring you down slowly,” he said. “And that’s something in our team that we could use more. That’s where all the goals and stuff comes at the end of the month, I feel like. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be those gritty goals where you send the puck into the net and someone, yeah, basically crash the net and crash into the goal, and the puck goes in. That’s where the goals [are] made. And I feel like we can have more of that, yeah, for sure.”
For what it’s worth, here’s what the Free Press’s Helene St. James has to say about the Wings’ July 1st moves…
These July 1 additions make the Wings look better, but hardly like a playoff team. They’re tougher, but who is going to score goals? Patrick Kane, one of their top offensive players, seemingly has shut the door on a return by deciding to enter free agency. And the whole Larkin trade request is still percolating, as two months later, the Wings have yet to hear any offer worth taking.
And MLive’s Ansar Khan weighed in as to the Wings’ unresolved situations as well:
The Red Wings have more than $18 million in cap space, a chunk of which will go to restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson when he signs.
I’d guess that Edvinsson’s going to cost a Lucas Raymond and/or Moritz Seider-like $8 million contract extension…
Meanwhile, Kane, 37, is exploring the market for the first time, after signing with the Red Wings the day before free agency in each of the past two years.
General manager Steve Yzerman said on Saturday the team wanted to retain Kane. Kane seemed to be leaning toward returning after the season to continue playing with Alex DeBrincat, his former linemate in Chicago.
“I love playing with Alex, and we have a great friendship, great relationship,” Kane said on April 17. “I’d love to continue playing with him.”
The first day of free agency produced a couple of noteworthy trades. Utah acquired center Vincent Trocheck from the Rangers and Edmonton shipped defenseman Darnell Nurse to San Jose.
Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin has not been moved four weeks after his trade request became public. Yzerman made it clear last weekend he won’t move Larkin unless he gets a return he likes, saying there is no guarantee that will happen.
