Vegas Golden Knights barely enjoyed the first minutes of the historic triumph after a spectacular victory in the Stanley Cup Finals, as the bosses of the “Knights” had to start solving a puzzle over the formation of the team for the next season. At the end of this competitive year, a number of significant Vegas hockey players entered the free agency market due to the expiration of their contracts. Among them was Ivan Barbashev.
The Russian striker ended up in the Golden Knights camp during last season as a result of an exchange from the St. Louis Blues and very quickly settled into the state of Nevada. In the local club, Barbashev instantly became his own and was useful in all combinations. In the midst of the battle for the Stanley Cup, Ivan reached the top three of the attack, «Golden Knights» and made a huge contribution to the championship «Vegas». For the franchise, which has existed in the NHL since 2017, this Stanley Cup was the first in history, for the Russian — the second. Keeping an extremely useful striker who is effective in creation, performance, power struggle and defense was a priority for the Knights. But it was also practically impossible due to the club's lack of sufficient space under the salary cap.
In this regard, some media — both Russian and North American — began to assert that Barbashev, against the backdrop of a serious rise and an increase in his price, will wait until July 1 to enter the free agent market and receive juicy offers, if not from Vegas, then from others. NHL clubs. And the demand for Ivan was high, and some teams were ready to satisfy his financial appetites. However, there was no need for this — the Golden Knights found a way to continue cooperation with the Russian star and signed a new contract with Barbashev for a period of five years and a cap hit in the amount of five million dollars.
According to the portal CapFriendly, the cap-hit for each of the five years of the contract will be the same, but the real salary (before taxes) will vary. So, in the first year of the new agreement, Barbashev will receive $3 million in salary and another $4 million in the form of a signing bonus. For the second year, the Russian will earn $5.4 million, and for each of the subsequent years — $4.2 million.
Vegas, in order to give the Russian striker a place in the squad, decided to part ways with Reilly Smith, who played for the Knights since the club's debut in the NHL, and traded him to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Very handy for the “Golden Knights” league from next season raised the salary cap. Yes, now we are talking only about an increase of only one million dollars, but some clubs are happy with these figures. Influenced the success in negotiations with “Vegas” and the position of Barbashev himself. Ivan to some extent made concessions to the club on the issue of wages. The Russian could easily count on $5.5 million a year and even more, but his desire to stay in Las Vegas turned out to be more than the temptation to plunge into a sea of money. This fact says a lot about Barbashev as a professional in his field, who sees the «Vegas» the potential to win trophies and more.
“Ivan's priority was to stay in Las Vegas to continue to have a chance to win every year. He wanted to stay with the Golden Knights, and we did everything in order to sign Vanya a good contract and keep him in Vegas for another for five seasons,» Barbashev's agent Dan Milstein said.
In the end, everyone was satisfied: Barbashev, whose wishes were fulfilled, and the club, which made a really important deal this offseason. At the moment, the “Vegas” have about $ 3.5 million more free under the salary cap, and the issue of understaffing the attacking line and the goaltending position remains unresolved. The Golden Knights could easily have thrown all their energy into the goalkeeper, because Robin Lehner's status for the upcoming season after several hip surgeries is still unknown. However, the club leaders decided to re-sign Barbashev in the first place, and this is very significant. On the opening day of the 2023/24 draw, Vegas will face the Seattle Cracken. From now on, the Golden Knights will defend their championship title, and how they will cope with this burden, no one can predict. But we can say with confidence that Ivan Barbashev will have an excellent opportunity to re-enter history and become only the fifth Russian hockey player who managed to win the Stanley Cup three times. Until now, Igor Larionov, Sergey Fedorov, Sergey Brylin and Evgeni Malkin remain among the three-time victors as players.