LAS VEGAS -- It's Saturday morning, a little more than 48 hours before Monday's NHL trade deadline, and Vegas Golden Knights center Jonathan Marchessault is on the ice at the team's training facility 20 miles off the Strip, in Summerlin, Nevada. He's holding his 2-year-old daughter, Victoria, in one hand and passing pucks to his 3-year-old son, James, who's wearing a full Golden Knights uniform, with his other hand.
Back in June, when Vegas selected Marchessault in the NHL expansion draft from the Florida Panthers, it would have been easy to envision him getting ready to move to his next city. He was, after all, on an expiring contract and playing for his third team in three years after bouncing between the NHL and the AHL the previous four seasons.
He was one of a few expiring contracts the team was expected to move as part of its long-term plan to build a playoff contender over the next few years. But almost nothing anyone expected Vegas to do back in June has materialized, as this ragtag group of players pieced together by general manager George McPhee has the best record in the Western Conference and the second-best record in the NHL with 20 games left in the regular season.
Marchessault, 27, has been the unlikely star of this unlikely championship contender -- leading the team with 62 points. He signed a six-year, $30 million contract last month and was able to relax on Monday, knowing he has found a home for the near future.
"I didn't really expect anything when I came here," Marchessault said. "I didn't know how it was going to turn out. It could have been the worst or the best -- and right now it's the best. It wasn't a hard decision to stay here. The staff and the organization is world-class, and I couldn't be happier playing here and in this city. This city is probably the best in the world if you want to go out to a nice restaurant or a nice bar, but where we live in Summerlin it's beautiful and a perfect place to raise a family."
The Golden Knights were expected to deal others with expiring contracts, such as James Neal, David Perron and Luca Sbisa -- but all three have been key players for Vegas, and McPhee has shown no interest in breaking up this team during its magical inaugural season. Perron is leading the Golden Knights in assists (42) and is second in points (57); Neal is second in goals (24); and Sbisa has been a rock on defense and in the locker room.
"I've been around long enough where I know things can happen fast," said Sbisa, 28. "Everyone is fair game. You think guys are locks and will never get moved and -- boom -- you get to the rink and they're gone and you wonder what happened. And you have guys who are rumored to be traded every year and they never get traded. I've seen it go both ways. I've been traded twice, but we all want to be here. We have something special going here."
Despite Vegas having one of the best records in the league the entire season and holding the best record going into the last weekend before the trade deadline, McPhee wasn't content. Not only were the Golden Knights buyers, but they were also aggressive at the trade deadline. They tried to land Ottawa Senators captain Erik Karlsson right up until the deadline and finalized three other deals. They acquired Ryan Reaves and a fourth-round pick from the Pittsburgh Penguins without giving up anything in a three-team deal on Friday. And on Monday they sent Brendan Leipsic, who was a healthy scratch in four of the past five games, to the Vancouver Canucks for defenseman Philip Holm, and made their biggest move just before the deadline when they acquired forward Tomas Tatar from the Detroit Red Wings for a 2018 first-round pick, a 2019 second-round pick and a 2021 third-rounder.
"We entered the deadline wanting to improve the team and we accomplished that," McPhee said. "We had a surplus of picks and we had a lot of cap space. We used those to our advantage in these deals. We still have a surplus of picks and we still have cap space moving forward. In the next four drafts, we have 11 picks in the first two rounds. We did not take any players off our roster, and we added depth and skill. And we kept our team together."
The fact that the Golden Knights didn't sell at the trade deadline means they will have some free agents -- including Neal, Perron and Sbisa -- who will have big decisions to make in the offseason. All three said their first choice would be to stay in Las Vegas.
"It's always a little weird at the trade deadline, but our team is definitely a special group," Neal said. "We've been working for each other all year and feel things will stay the same and we'll continue to build and work toward our goal. I love it here, and I hope everything works out so I can stay here for a long time."
Not only was McPhee aggressive at the trade deadline but Vegas owner Bill Foley also says he will pay any price to bring a championship to the city, suggesting that he will continue to be aggressive in the offseason with free agents, whether it's his own or players on other teams.
"We've been aggressive since the inception of the franchise," McPhee said. "We've worked very hard to build a good team, to do the right things, to acquire good players, to acquire good picks, to build a terrific practice facility, to make sure everything works here and is a place the players want to be.
"It's a great place to play," he said. "We have a terrific fan base, a great game rink to play in, a great practice facility, an airport that's close and easy to get around, great weather and no state tax. If we do our jobs with a lot of those elements in place, we knew we could win. Nothing has changed, and we're going to continue to do the very best we can to build a winner."