{"id":126662,"date":"2025-09-08T01:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/126662\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T01:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T01:03:08","slug":"extending-jack-eichel-will-be-a-top-priority-for-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/126662\/","title":{"rendered":"Extending Jack Eichel Will Be A Top Priority For Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vegas Golden Knights find their back to summer fireworks every single year. They pulled off a sign-and-trade deal for Mitch Marner<\/a> this year, complete with an eight-year, $96MM contract for the superstar winger. Now, they face the looming task of signing top center Jack Eichel<\/a> before he reaches free agency next July. Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon said that Eichel\u2019s deal will be a top priority for the club in a recent conversation with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic<\/a>. LeBrun further added that, while the two sides still have a long way to go, he\u2019d be surprised if a deal didn\u2019t get done.<\/p>\n

Extension conversations between Eichel and Vegas began back in May<\/a>, and the team began to work out contract estimates<\/a> following their July acquisition of Marner. Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman suggested that Vegas was ready to hand Eichel an even heftier deal than what Marner received \u2013 and with talks continuing at a strong cadence, it doesn\u2019t seem that bar has created any barriers.<\/p>\n

Targeting a deal richer than Marner\u2019s will almost certainly land the value of Eichel\u2019s next deal north of $100MM. That would put him among a limited, but growing, group of NHL stars to sign a nine-figure deal. Only seven players have signed such contracts \u2013 the most recent being Leon Draisaitl<\/a>\u2019s record-breaking $112MM contract<\/a> with the Edmonton Oilers. That deal \u2013 which carries a $14MM cap hit for eight seasons \u2013 could be where Vegas begins conversations with Eichel. The 28-year-old centerman hasn\u2019t yet crossed the century mark in scoring, but he\u2019s planted deep roots in Vegas\u2019 top forward role and seems set for a big year with Marner\u2019s support.<\/p>\n

Aside from the importance of signing your lineup star, Vegas will need to cement Eichel\u2019s deal before they even think of budgeting for the 2026-27 season. The salary cap is expected to rise to $104MM \u2013 nearly $9MM more than next season\u2019s limit \u2013 which should give Vegas plenty of space to give Eichel a raise of $4MM or $5MM per year. The Golden Knights will be pushing up against the cap ceiling this next season, and will only manage any cap relief by placing top defenseman Alex Pietrangelo<\/a> on long-term injured reserve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No matter where his salary ends up, Eichel\u2019s next deal seems all-but-certain to carry through the bulk of his 30\u2019s. They could be the best years of the one-time Stanley Cup winner\u2019s career as well, as Vegas continues to load up on blue-chip talent through free agency and the draft. The Golden Knights will be as competitive as ever next season \u2013 with Marner\u2019s debut, Pavel Dorofeyev<\/a>\u2019s follow-up, and Trevor Connelly<\/a>\u2019s push up the minor-leagues each providing plenty of sparks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vegas Golden Knights find their back to summer fireworks every single year. They pulled off a sign-and-trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,88654,10232,575,7820,85,7529],"class_list":["post-126662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-jack-eichel","tag-newsstand","tag-nhl","tag-players","tag-sports","tag-vegas-golden-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}