George Walker IV / AP
Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nicolas Hague (14) shoots the puck during the first period against the Nashville Predators, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 | 2 a.m.
When it comes to successful Golden Knight draft picks, Nicolas Hague currently sits atop the list.
The defenseman was the No. 34 overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, when the Golden Knights participated in the event for the initial time as an expansion franchise.
The 25-year-old has played 296 career regular-season games with Vegas and appeared in all 22 playoff games last year during the team’s Stanley Cup-winning run.
A new batch of prospects will join the organization Friday and Saturday with the Golden Knights hoping they can add some much-needed organizational depth. The draft will be at Sphere in Las Vegas.
Hague was Vegas’ fourth pick of the 2017 draft but turned out to be the most productive with the team, partly because of its aggressive trading strategy that has seen the other three drafted that year traded away.
The Golden Knights have frequently traded away their highest draft picks to acquire more-proven NHL veterans, including in 2018 when Hague’s draft classmate Nick Suzuki was sent to Montreal in exchange for Max Pacioretty.
Suzuki has turned out to be the best player the Golden Knights ever drafted, but it’s all been with the Canadiens where he’s turned into a team captain with 286 points in 373 career games.
Pacioretty led the Golden Knights in goals on the teams that reached the conference finals in back-to-back years in 2020 and 2021 before he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes.
“It worked out for both teams,” Suzuki told the Sun in 2021. “When (Montreal general manager) Marc (Bergevin) called me and said I was a big piece that they wanted I just wanted to show that Montreal made the right decision in bringing me over. I want to do everything I can for this franchise.”
The Golden Knights have made seven first-round draft picks since entering the league in 2017, when they took Cody Glass at No. 6 overall as the franchise’s first-ever selection.
They had a trio of first-round selections in 2017, also taking Suzuki at No. 13 and Erik Brannstrom at No. 15 in 2017.
Brannstrom was traded to the Ottawa Senators in 2019 in the deal that brought Mark Stone to Las Vegas. The defenseman has played in 266 career NHL games but hasn’t yet tapped into the offensive potential that made him such a highly touted prospect, notching only seven career goals.
Glass has been the least productive of the Golden Knights’ initial big three draftees and was traded to Nashville in 2021.
Only one homegrown first-round pick remains on the Golden Knights’ roster — forward Brendan Brisson, taken 29th overall in the 2020 draft.
Fourteen of Vegas’ 50 all-time picks have reached the NHL including forward Pavel Dorofeyev, who broke out this year with 13 goals and 11 assists in 47 games.
Despite being a healthy scratch in all but one playoff game this season and only logging seven minutes of postseason ice time, the 2019 third-round pick is a building block going forward.
Perhaps the most notable player Vegas has developed is defenseman Zach Whitecloud, who signed as a free agent after not being selected in the 2018 draft.
Whitecloud has been a mainstay in the lineup the past four years, and in 2021 received a six-year, $16.5 million contract extension.
Who will join the group?
The Golden Knights have the 19th overall pick in the first round, and there’s no clear indication of which direction they will go.
Clutch Points forecasts that Vegas will draft Czech defenseman Adam Jiříček, and MyNHLDraft.com also went with a defender in Norwegian Stian Solberg.
The Score predicts the Golden Knights will take Canadian center Jett Luchanko, who had 74 points in 68 games this season with the Guelph Storm in the Ontario Hockey League. ESPN went with a forward in Swedish winger Michael Brandsegg-Nygard.
A mock draft from The Athletic and FanSided yields a controversial pick in Trevor Connelly, a winger from the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League.
Connelly in March 2022 posted a photo on social media of his friend posing with a swastika made of children’s books. He also was reportedly suspended for using a racial slur but has denied this claim.
“I’ve put a lot of work into myself and have done a lot of things in the community. I volunteer a lot,” Connelly said earlier this month at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo, N.Y.“I just don’t want to hang myself on the past, and I want to keep moving forward. That’s the most I can do: Be the best person I can be every day.”
Putting his off-ice issues aside, Connelly is regarded as one of the top American skaters in the draft and is noted for his stickhandling skills and speed.
He put up superb numbers with Tri-City: 31 goals, and 47 assists for 78 points in 52 games.
The Golden Knights are scheduled to make four picks in the draft. In addition to the No. 19 overall on Friday, they have a sixth-round selection and a pair of seven round picks on Saturday.
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