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Golden Knights Sign Shea Theodore to Seven-Year, $36.4 Million Deal
The Vegas Golden Knights crossed off one of their last remaining offseason to-dos late on Monday night, announcing a seven-year deal for RFA defenseman Shea Theodore with a $5.2 million cap hit.
The contract will keep the defenseman on the Vegas blue line through the 2024-25 season and makes him the fourth-highest paid player on the team.
"It’s about, for us, managing the cap properly," GM George McPhee said in a press conference. "We thought if we paid a little more now and had a contract that was pretty steady throughout its term, and we have cost certainty in the future, it allows us to manage the cap better.
"He’s a good young player, we got some of his unrestricted years, and now he can just play."
The contract is a flat $5.2 million per season, with no fluctuation and a five-team no-trade clause for the final two seasons.
Theodore, 23, is coming off a 2017-18 season that saw him post six goals and 29 points in 61 games, adding another 10 points during the Golden Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup Final. He enters the new season with 11 goals and 46 points in 114 career NHL games. The former first-round pick was traded by Anaheim during the 2017 expansion draft and began the season with AHL Chicago before getting called up to the NHL on October 30.
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McPhee said Theodore's agent wanted a two-year deal, while the team was pushing for longer term.
“Based on the way he played last year and what he did at his age ... to really play that well,” he told media, “and to play that well in the playoffs for four rounds, we’re pretty confident in what we’re going to have now and in the future.”
Getting Theodore's deal wrapped up became a bigger priority with defenseman Nate Schmidt suspended for the first 20 games of the season for PEDs.
The deal is the latest move for McPhee, who kept busy this summer. Among his offseason acquisitions were free-agent signing Paul Stastny and winger Max Pacioretty, who came over via trade with Montreal. McPhee also signed forward William Karlsson to a one-year, $5.25 million contract, inked defenseman Colin Miller to a four-year deal and extended goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through 2021-22.