The Vegas Golden Knights placed Alex Pietrangelo on the season-ending long-term injured list when they submitted their opening day roster to the NHL, meaning the star defenseman will miss the entirety of the 2025-26 season and playoffs. With the move, Vegas is now eligible for full cap relief from Pietrangelo’s $8.8 million cap hit. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was first to report the news.
The season-ending long-term injured list is a new distinction for this season, as a result of the NHL and NHLPA agreeing to change LTIR rules in the upcoming CBA. Under the new regulations, LTIR relief is now limited to the previous season’s average NHL salary, which was $3,817,293 in 2024-25. That means any player with a cap hit higher than that number would have his cap reduced to that, rather than zero. The caveat is that if a team rules the player out for the entirety of the season, including the playoffs, they receive full relief and will not have that player’s salary counted toward the team’s cap hit.
That’s what the Golden Knights have done with Pietrangelo, who has led the team in average ice time for five straight seasons. The future Hall of Famer has played 1,087 NHL games, 329 of which were with Vegas. He has 148 career goals, 489 assists, and won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2018, then again with the Golden Knights in 2023.
What it means for Golden Knights
Losing Pietrangelo for the entirety of the season is obviously a massive blow to Vegas’ blue line, but the Golden Knights have been operating under this assumption for a while at this point. The team projects to have roughly $5.8 million in cap space after this move, according to CapWages.com, with 12 forwards, seven defensemen and two goalies on the roster.
Vegas still needs to sign restricted free agent Alexander Holtz, who has been participating in camp and preseason with a PTO contract. There have also been reports that the team is interested in signing former Flyers goalie Carter Hart.
The ramifications of Pietrangelo’s absence will be felt by all three of Vegas’ defensive pairs. Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb will serve as the top pair and are expected to play more minutes than ever. The two have played together for years with great success, but this will be a new challenge for them. It also means Zach Whitecloud is bumped up from the bottom pair — where he’s been one of the best bottom-two defensemen in the league for several seasons — to a much bigger role next to Noah Hanifin on the second pair. Newcomer Jeremy Lauzon will pair with Kaedan Korczak, who has never played more than 40 games in a season, on the new bottom pair.
The good news for the Golden Knights is that they still have the excellent defensive system run by coach Bruce Cassidy, a talented group on the blue line, and plenty of defensively responsible forwards to help out. Jack Eichel, Mark Stone and Mitch Marner are among the best two-way forwards in the NHL, while William Karlsson and Reilly Smith have been reliable defenders for a long time in Vegas.