On the afternoon of the biggest night in franchise history, the details regarding Vegas’ first trades have begun to come out.

Earlier this morning Minnesota reporter Michael Russo began revealing details of the long-rumored Minnesota Wild and Vegas Golden Knights trade.

What we have right now is very basic, lacking much of the solid details required to fully analyze a trade. What Russo and others are reporting is that the Knights will pick center Erik Haula from the Wild in the expansion draft later tonight, and will receive prospect Alex Tuch, in exchange for not selecting defensemen Matt Dumba, Marco Scandella, nor veteran center Eric Staal. Vegas is also supposedly sending a conditional draft pick to the Wild, the details of which are still unknown.

Personally, I think this trade is a horrible start to GMGM(General Manager George McPhee)’s moves surrounding expansion. To begin, let’s dive into the players Vegas is getting.

Erik Haula is 26 and an RFA this offseason, but apparently coming with a new contract. He played fourth line minutes with the Wild this season, scoring 15 goals and 19 assists in 72 games. Looking at his HERO charts thanks to Own The Puck, Haula looks to be equivalent to roughly a 3rd line center in every category except goals, where he lines up as a 2nd-3rd line tweener.

Alex Tuch is nothing special either. He was the 18th pick in the 2014 draft and is currently 21. He had 18 goals and 19 assists in 57 games this year for the AHL’s Iowa Wild, good for 0.65PPG. While that’s not bad for a 21 year old in the AHL, it’s not absolutely eye-popping either. He’ll probably need one-two more years down there before he’s NHL-ready, and even then he doesn’t project as much more than a low-end second liner.

For a team with only 3 official players as of writing this article, that’s not bad for only giving up what is hopefully a low pick with tough to meet restrictions (although, I truthfully have no idea what the pick is). What’s bad is what Vegas GMGM and his staff missed out on.

Looking into him more, I absolutely love Marco Scandella. While not being an offensive superstar (4 Goals, 9 Assists in 71 games this season), he looks to be close to a lower-end top-pairing defenceman, and if not that then certainly a great top 4 dman. On top of this, he is also signed to a nice contract paying him an AAV of $4 million for the next 3 years. He’s also only 27, meaning he’s young enough to be a great building block for Vegas’ blue-line for years to come.

Had Vegas not been interested in acquiring Scandella for whatever reason, 2012 8th Overall pick Mat Dumba would have been another good choice. While Dumba has had rumored issues in Minnesota regarding his development, he’s still a 22 year old top 6 guy who put up 11 goals and 23 assists in 76 games this year (almost as many as Erik Haula). His name has also been brought up in many trade rumors and he’s a guy who Vegas most likely could have flipped for something good post expansion draft to any of Toronto, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Tampa…

While this trade isn’t horrid or detrimental, I do think it’s a bad start and starts Vegas off at a weaker point then we could have been at had we taken Dumba or Scandella, but I guess time will tell. Maybe Tuch gets put on Shipachyov’s wing next season and pots 25, who knows?

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Any feedback is appreciated, make sure to check back later for more Vegas updates regarding trades and the expansion draft. Thank you for reading, and please, join us all and become a fan of the round table. (Still working on it, maybe next time I’ll sign off with talking about a ‘McCrimmon’s blade’ or something cool like that)