Welcome back to the Vegas Golden Knights notebook. The 2025 NHL Draft has concluded, and it wrapped up with a mixed bag of reviews. The decentralized draft wasn’t well received by many, and I can’t blame them.
The Golden Knights continue to remain in trade talks regarding Mitch Marner, and by the time you’re reading this, he could be a Golden Knight. That’s the NHL. It’s wild, crazy, and the havoc has yet to kick off for several teams.
Related: The NHL’s Decentralized Draft Put New Spin on Round 1 — What Worked & What Didn’t?
For now, we’ll tackle a handful of big topics, but to start things off, we recap the 2025 NHL Draft. The Golden Knights didn’t make much noise but came away with four new prospects.
NHL Draft Recap
The draft isn’t usually an event the Golden Knights circle on their calendar, as they rarely have a lot of draft capital to work with. Oftentimes, those draft picks are used in trades. Think of the trades for Tomáš Hertl, Noah Hanifin, and Jack Eichel, all where they had to give up a first-round pick.
Thus, the draft simply isn’t a needle mover for the Golden Knights, and that proved to be true once again this year. They arrived in Los Angeles with six draft picks but came away with four players after moving up twice. Their selections are as follows:
- Pick 55: Jakob Ihs-Wozniak (RW)
- Pick 85: Mateo Nobert (C)
- Pick 186: Alex Weiermair (C)
- Pick 187: Gustav Sjöqvist (D)
Without having a first-round pick, Ish-Wozniak headlines the draft for Vegas and adds some diversity to the prospect pool. The Australian-born right winger has a sharp shot but could work on consistency.
It’s pretty evident why Nobert went where he did after watching a few clips of his game. He’s highly competitive, and his work ethic likely contributed to his being drafted at this point. Still, though, finding his defensive game and improving his two-way game as a center will be key to his development.
Weiermair and Sjöqvist capped off the draft for the Golden Knights, as they had back-to-back picks during the middle portion of the sixth round.
With limited room to work with, it’s hard to be upset with how the Golden Knights did during the 2025 NHL Draft. They didn’t have a first-round pick, so they made the most of what they had.
Mitch Marner Case Gets Interesting
The Marner to Vegas hype has picked up steam this summer, but this has been in the works behind the scenes for a long, long time. Back at the 2024 NHL Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs offered Marner to the Golden Knights in a deal surrounding Shea Theodore.
General manager Kelly McCrimmon liked Marner but wasn’t going to part ways with his superstar defenseman. That then leads us to the trade deadline a couple of months ago, where it was reported that a three-way trade was discussed between Vegas, Toronto, and the Carolina Hurricanes.
Fast-forward to the draft in Los Angeles, where Elliotte Friedman reported that a sign-and-trade was on the table, something that Vegas had approached Toronto about at the NHL Combine in Buffalo.
The Golden Knights have been in discussions with the Maple Leafs since, and talks heated up during the draft, it appears. Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving said in his post-draft press conference with local media that he’d like to get something for Marner since his departure seems inevitable.
“You’d always like to get something, right?” Treliving said. “That’s not always the case. That’s probably as far as I want to get into it, but we’ll see how things go.”
Friedman on 32 Thoughts yesterday morning, however, dropped some news that raised some eyebrows. There has been talk that the Leafs could explore tampering if Marner ends up in Vegas without a trade. However, if the Golden Knights make a deal and send real value back, any tampering concerns would likely subside.
That value could be Nicolas Roy, along with a possible draft pick. At this point, anything is on the table, but Roy’s name has been floating around for a while now. With Nicolas Hague being dealt to the Nashville Predators, his name is now obviously out of the conversation.
This, as many could imagine, remains a highly fluid situation, and if a sign-and-trade is to occur, it’ll happen within the next 48 hours. But, it’ll be interesting to see what happens and see if Marner lands in Vegas or not.
Loose Pucks:
- Many have reported that Alex Pietrangelo’s future may be in jeopardy due to injuries. David Pagnotta gave some clarity yesterday morning, saying, “Alex Pietrangelo is dealing with serious injuries and is going to require multiple major surgeries this summer, which will result in missing the entire 2025-26 season, at least.” This could see Pietrangelo end up on the LTIR and, as Pagnotta says, at least missing the 2025-26 season.
- Adding to the point above, if this is all for Pietrangelo, what a career it’s been. He has won the Stanley Cup twice, once with the St. Louis Blues and again in Vegas, and he won Gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics with Team Canada. Again, we’ll see what the future holds, but it’s been one heck of a ride, if that’s all for Pietrangelo.
- Development camp starts today, with practice beginning at 1:15 p.m. Trevor Connelly, Ihs-Wozniak, Tuomas Uronen, and Abram Wiebe headline it. It should be a good showing.
- An interesting note on the draft. During McCrimmon’s post-draft press conference, he mentioned Vegas was one of the six teams that voted for the draft to stay centralized. The vote overall was 26-6 in favor of it moving to a decentralized format. We’ll see what happens next season, but it looks likely that we could return to normal.
- A note on tampering, which Friedman mentions the NHL is itching to make an example of someone. Here are the penalties if a team were to tamper with free agents before July 1: Fine teams up to $5 million, revoke draft picks, or void contracts if tampering occurs before free agency. Individuals involved may face fines of up to $1 million, suspension, or even expulsion. If Vegas were to be found guilty, they’d be losing out on a lot, so we’ll see where that goes.
- Last bit here: it still remains unlikely that the Golden Knights will look to trade William Karlsson, Ivan Barbashev, or Hertl. The consensus is that all three of them, despite their cap hit, will be Golden Knights to start next season. Of course, anything can change, but it looks like they’ll be staying put for the foreseeable future.
