The Las Vegas Golden Knights have agreed to a 7-year contract worth $8.8 million per year with star defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.
Pietrangelo, who has been with the St. Louis Blues since being drafted by them fourth overall in the 2008 draft, was one of the prized free agents of the 2020 offseason.
The deal is worth a total of $61.6 million. Since Pietrangelo’s $8.8 million per year contract is going to eat up a lot of cap space, the Golden Knights had to make some moves to clear some money before signing him.
They traded defenseman Nate Schmidt to the Vancouver Canucks to free up $5.95 million and sent center Paul Stastny to the Winnipeg Jets.
Expect the Golden Knights to make a few more money-saving moves this offseason, like getting rid of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
Pietrangelo has been a captain in St. Louis since 2016 and was an integral piece on the roster that won the franchise’s first ever Stanley Cup in 2019.
Despite being 30, he had a career-high 16 goals in the 2019-2020 season, adding 36 assists in just 70 games. The Blues were eliminated in the Western Conference quarterfinals by the Canucks.
Las Vegas lost to the Stanley Cup champion Dallas Stars in five games in the Western Conference finals.
