Golden Knights’ untarnished cap space makes for major advantage

As the Penguins and Predators battle for the Stanley Cup, the general managers of the other NHL teams have already begun their offseason. They are looking to renovate their rosters in an attempt to reach where Pittsburgh and Nashville are now.

With the salary cap looming, many teams will remake their rosters by eliminating bad contracts to clear room for what they hope are improved newcomers.

Meanwhile, Vegas Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee sits contently ready to build his roster exactly as he likes.

“It’s much easier creating your own culture than changing a bad one,” McPhee said. “We believe creating a culture here will be key to our success. You see it all over the league. Teams with a good culture win, and teams that don’t have one never win.”

But McPhee’s advantage is also tangible — $68,500,000.

That’s the amount of cap room McPhee has to work with as of now (Vadim Shipachyov’s $4.5 million annual salary is the only one on the books).

The NHL has yet to settle on an official salary cap for the 2017-18 season but it’s anticipated to be between $75.5 and $76 million. Many teams will struggle to stay below it, including the Chicago Blackhawks, who already have a projected cap hit of $77.5 million before the draft and free agency, and three other teams with projected salaries over $70 million.

“That is a big issue in our game,” McPhee said. “Getting close to that number can really handcuff teams and get into the way of your success.”

Teams all over the league are paying players who haven’t lived up to their contracts. For example, the Ottawa Senators are stuck paying Dion Phaneuf $7 million per year until 2021, and the Los Angeles Kings are desperately trying to get out from under Dustin Brown’s eight-year, $47 million contract.

The Golden Knights can use other team’s predicaments to their advantage. Because they won’t be near the cap roof this year, they can afford to take on bigger contracts to help teams out, and receive compensation like draft picks or prospects in return.

“From my experience in Washington, one of the keys to that team being so successful was not making bad contracts and getting locked into long-term deals,” said McPhee, who was the Capitals general manager from 1997 to 2014. “No deal is better than a bad deal. Being able to walk away from those deals during negotiations is important.”

Usually when a general manager takes over for a team, ridding the roster of bad contracts is one of the most difficult tasks. But here in Las Vegas, McPhee has no such problem.

“Having no money on the books and being able to put the team together as we want is huge,” McPhee said.

The Golden Knights will have an exclusive, 72-hour period to sign unrestricted free agents during the expansion draft beginning at 7 a.m. June 18.

Pittsburgh’s Nick Bonino and Washington’s Karl Alzner headline the free agency class, but any player the Golden Knights sign during the period serves as their selection from that team in the expansion draft.

Whether McPhee chooses to go with expensive, proven veterans or cheap, young prospects, the Golden Knights will be built exactly how he wants.

They will probably end up being closer to the salary cap minimum of $54 million than the maximum limit, and that’s a place nearly every general manager in the league would love to be.