Knights free agency preview: Where things stand with Marchessault

The Golden Knights’ free-agency plans got a little more complicated over the weekend.

Their initial focus was finding a way to bring back right wing Jonathan Marchessault before the market opened Monday. They’ve had to widen their view in recent days.

The Knights’ decision to trade goaltender Logan Thompson to the Washington Capitals on Saturday means the team now has an opening at backup goaltender. The club will need to sort through free-agent options at that position while still keeping enough money around for the 2023 Conn Smythe Trophy winner for playoff MVP.

General manager Kelly McCrimmon declined to give an update on the negotiations after the first round of the NHL draft at Sphere on Friday.

“We’ll talk again Monday,” McCrimmon said.

McCrimmon did meet with Marchessault’s agent Pat Brisson during the draft. There remains optimism the two sides can come to an agreement before the free-agent floodgates open at 9 a.m. Monday.

The Knights have approximately $8.53 million in cap space with nine forwards, seven defenseman and one goaltender under contract. Teams can exceed the cap by 10 percent of the $88 million upper limit during the offseason.

One question is whether bringing back Marchessault — who had a $5 million cap hit his previous contract — plus a new goaltender will require the Knights to make a cap-clearing move.

They also need to give new deals to restricted free agents Pavel Dorofeyev and Kaedan Korczak, who they extended qualifying offers to Sunday. All those moves could erase the Knights’ flexibility fast.

Marchessault, 33, is the kind of player worth making room for.

He scored 13 goals and 25 points in 22 games during the Knights’ Stanley Cup run in 2023, then scored a career-high 42 goals last season.

The Original Misfit is also the franchise’s all-time leader in goals, assists, points and games played.

The Detroit Red Wings make sense as a landing spot if Marchessault does hit the market.

They have $32 million in cap space and Marchessault has a history with Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman. Marchessault played for the Tampa Bay Lightning for two seasons during Yzerman’s tenure as general manager there.

The Knights have five other pending unrestricted free agents as well in center Chandler Stephenson, left wing William Carrier, defenseman Alec Martinez and right wings Michael Amadio and Anthony Mantha. None of them seem likely to return as things stand.

Mantha told the French-language media outlet RDS he was informed by the Knights he would not be brought back.

The representatives for the other five free agents did not return a request for comment.

Stephenson, 30, had 51 points in 75 games last season. He became a top-six fixture after being acquired from the Washington Capitals for a fifth-round pick in December 2019 in one of the best trades in Knights history.

Carrier, 29, has been a fourth-line staple since being selected from Buffalo in the 2017 expansion draft. He scored 99 points in 372 games with the Knights.

Martinez, 36, spent the last five seasons in Las Vegas after being traded from the Los Angeles Kings in February 2020. He won his third Stanley Cup last year after being part of the Kings’ championships in 2012 and 2014.

Amadio, 28, took his career to new heights after being plucked off waivers by the Knights in October 2021. He scored 72 points in 193 games with the team.

Mantha, 29, was acquired from the Knights on March 5 from the Capitals for a second-round pick in this year’s draft. Mantha scored 10 points in 18 games after the move, but was a healthy scratch the last four games of the playoffs.

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.