NHL officially voids Vegas Golden Knights – Anaheim Ducks deal involving Evgenii Dadonov
The NHL has officially voided the cap-clearing deal which would’ve seen the Vegas Golden Knights trade forward Evgenii Dadonov to the Anaheim Ducks.
The deal would’ve seen the Golden Knights flip Dadonov and a conditional 2024 second-round pick to the Ducks for defenseman John Moore and the contract of forward Ryan Kesler which could’ve been stashed on LTIR. Kesler hasn’t played since 2018-19 due to a career-ending hip injury.
While it wasn’t known to some of the parties involved, Dadonov had a 10-team no-trade clause that included the Ducks.
Dadonov, while still with the Ottawa Senators, signed a three-year deal with a $5-million AAV on Oct. 15, 2020, as a free agent. In the deal, a 10-team no-trade clause was added. Eight months later on July 28th, 2021, Dadonov was traded to the Golden Knights — a move permissible as Vegas was not on the list. Standard practice, as noted by former NHL assistant general manager and current Daily Faceoff scribe Chris Gear, would be that the list would be known by the Golden Knights as the clause would follow him.
Fast forward to Monday, and it wasn’t known until after the deal went through that Dadonov still had the 10-team no-trade list that had Anaheim as a team he would refuse a trade to.
The move is nothing short of disastrous for the Golden Knights. It leaves them with a shade over $400,000, according to CapFriendly, and well short of the space needed to activate captain Mark Stone ($9.5-million) or defenseman Alec Martinez ($5.25-million) off the LTIR.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the Golden Knights are without options. Post-deadline, teams can still make trades involving players suggesting they could still move Dadonov. But when that happens, it means that ‘x’-player traded is ineligible to play in any games for the remainder of that season, or in that post-season.
It puts Dadonov in a horrible position, meaning that if a team acquires him, his season would end much shorter than expected.
Nonetheless, this story is about to get even more interesting.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.