The NHL tradeline approached at 3EST on Monday March 21. For many Golden Knights fans it looked like the team was going to do absolutely nothing. Others thought Golden Knights would join the trade party at the very last minute. Well they did the later but what they thought would be a simple trade turned into something very complicated. This is about the Vegas Golden Knights Dadonov trade issues.
Who is Evgenii Dadonov?
Evgenii Dadonov or to some Vegas Golden Knights fans “Daddy” was added to the Golden Knights during the offseason from a trade with the Senators on July 28, 2021. This trade gave the Golden Knights Dadonov and the Senators Nick Holden as well as a 3rd round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. The Golden Knights took over rest of Dadonov’s contract this season a $5M cap hit.
He made his appearance known on the Golden Knights pretty quick recording his first Golden Knights assist against Kings October 14th and his first Golden Knights goal against Avalanche October 26th. As a Golden Knight he has recorded 15 goals and 12 assists in 62 games played. He has played well and become a favorite (probably for the Daddy jokes). But it came to no surprise that he was a name to be traded because of his contract hit.
Dadonov Trade
Trade deadline was approaching and news had it Dadonov was on the chopping block for a trade. Where was he rumored? The Ducks. Speculation began of what pieces the Golden Knights could receive back. Well 3EST hit and still nothing. The trades were so backed up it took HOURS to get to the Dadonov one. Once it was reported the trade came out as Dadonov and a 2nd round pick to Ducks and John Moore as well as Ryan Kesler’s contract rights to Golden Knights.
The Dadonov saga is over: Trade between Vegas & Anaheim is complete.
Credit to @reporterchris for the full details:To ANA:
F Evgeni Dadonov
2nd RD pickTo VGK:
D John Moore
C Ryan Kesler (contract rights)— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) March 21, 2022
BUT THERE WAS A MAJOR ISSUE. This issue… guess who had a No Trade Clause and listed 10 teams with the Ducks as one of his teams. If you said Daddy your answer is correct. Thus began the headache of deciding what to do.
Dadonov Trade Issues
It’s believed part of the delay in processing Dadonov to the Ducks included old business. The NHL didn’t have Dadonov’s original “no trade” list on record. Turns out, Anaheim was on the list, but neither Vegas, Anaheim, nor the NHL knew. The trade was processed based on this.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) March 22, 2022
Surprise the trade had issues. Some believe this is karma, others are just upset at the system or for Dadonov and the rest well we were in confusion for 2 days. The finger pointing began when a trade list could not be found. Was it the Senators fault since he was traded after when he would have submitted one? Was it Golden Knights fault for not asking about it? Perhaps the NHL’s fault for not double checking their records sources? Maybe it was Dadonov’s Agent for not properly communicating between teams?
The next day matters only got worse. Where was the trade list? Well ironically CapFriendly had a NMC listed on their website. This gives some iffy eyes to all parties involved. Besides the Ducks personally I do not give any fault to them in this issue. How can a website that keeps track of cap space have it but not the official league not know about it?
If our good friends @CapFriendly have Dadonov’s NMC listed on their website how can the Knights not know? Contracts are registered with the league. Sounds like a team trying to force a player to waive to go where they don’t want to go. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) March 22, 2022
There were just so many unanswered questions and many moments of waiting to see what happened. Without having a lot of information and knowing that is a team Dadonov did not want to go to makes sense to void it right? Well apparently the issue was so big that this decision took about 2 days to decide but the Dadonov trade issues have ended and there was a decision made.
Dadonov Trade Issue Decision
About 2 days later the decision was finally announced. Daddy’s back! The League decided to invalidate the trade with the notes: “the trade could not be concluded because Dadonov’s contract includes a limited no-trade clause which has not been complied with.” Welcome back to the Golden Knights Dadonov but at what cost?
The Vegas Golden Knights recognize the league’s decision and welcome Evgenii back to our club. #VegasBorn
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) March 23, 2022
Aftermath of Dadonov Trade Invalidated
So what happens next? First lets talk about the Cap issues Golden Knights now will have to deal with since this trade did not go through. As many know Golden Knights signed Jack Eichel. Which great! And were able to activate him no problem due to injuries of others Martinez, Stone, etc. But what about when the LTIR’s want to come back? There lies the problem.
After reverting the Dadonov trade, we now show #Vegas with only $405,833 in usable space remaining in their LTI Salary pool.
As a result they would now need to clear:
$4,844,167 to activate Martinez
$9,094,167 to activate StoneThey currently have a roster of 26
(15F – 9D – 2G) pic.twitter.com/v6lgvvK4rk— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) March 23, 2022
As seen in the tweet by CapFriendly the Golden Knights need to clear $13,938,334 to activate both Martinez and Stone. Trading Dadonov would have solved this problem, but now it becomes an issue of whos traded, whos brought down to Henderson Silver Knights, or do they leave these two there longer then needed to solve the issue. The easiest answer try to find a non playoff team (say Arizona) to try to trade Dadonov anyway but he then can not play in any more games this season. In fact anyone traded now can not play since it is past deadline. Moral of the story this situation is MESSY.
Summary
Probably the biggest question people want answered though who is responsible for this mess. Now I can not say for sure but my finger is pointed at Senators. Will we ever know for sure? Probably not.
I’m terms of where the finger should be pointed in the Evgenii Dadonov case, league sources say the blame rests on the shoulders of the Ottawa Senators.
— Andy Strickland (@andystrickland) March 23, 2022
So can we stop blaming the Vegas for the Dadonov trade issues? Instead here’s a fun idea for punishment in case they want the Golden Knights fans to be in more misery then we are about to be with our Cap and injury issues.
What if Dadonov goes on an absolute TEAR and scores all these goals and then as punishment they are like “well actually whatever goals scored by him don’t count for you so sad too bad”
— Defective Britt 🕵️♀️🔎 (@TheBrittWithAnI) March 23, 2022
Featured Image: cbc.ca
~Josie Averitt (JosieAve on Twitter)
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