LAS VEGAS (AP) — An original Golden Knight, Jonathan Marchessault wanted to stay in Las Vegas, but he also understood as well as anyone that this organization will do what it believes will put the team in the best position to win in the near and long term.
Even if that means allowing one of the most popular players in the franchise's short history to leave, which is what happened when Marchessault signed with the Nashville Predators on July 1.
“There’s definitely no loyalty but, at the same time, you’re there to win," Marchessault said about the Golden Knights on the The Cam and Strick Podcast. "I don’t mind that mindset, personally.”
That's the dichotomy for those in the Golden Knights organization. Management will provide whatever tools are needed to compete for the Stanley Cup, but that also comes with the understanding that the leash can be short.
And that applies to players and coaches.
Marchessault won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2023, and last season he scored 42 goals, just one off the club record. But with an eye on the future, the Golden Knights also knew Marchessault turns 34 this December.
There's a disagreement on the terms from each side, but general manager Kelly McCrimmon told The Associated Press that the Golden Knights wanted to keep Marchessault. As for providing a more detailed explanation, McCrimmon referred to earlier comments he made on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio that Nashville offered Marchessault a deal that was a year longer than what Vegas put on the table.
As unpopular a move as it was to let Marchessault go, that pales in comparison to when the Golden Knights chose Robin Lehner over Vegas favorite Marc-Andre Fleury in 2021 when they traded the Vezina Trophy winner to the Chicago Blackhawks. Fleury, now with Minnesota, still receives warm welcomes when he returns, and fans even chanted his name when the Wild visited April 12.
Lehner's time with the Golden Knights just ended after, according to Daily Faceoff on Thursday, a settlement was reached in which his $5 million salary will not count against the salary cap this season. He also likely will be paid $4.5 million in the final year of his deal, the report said. Lehner has been on long-term injured reserve the past two seasons after undergoing hip surgery.
The Golden Knights also aggressively pursue players, landing notable names such as Mark Stone, Alex Pietrangelo and Max Pacioretty over the years.
They also traded for Jack Eichel, embroiled at the time in a dispute with the Buffalo Sabres over a procedure never performed on an NHL player. Eichel wouldn't budge off his stance, and the Golden Knights not only orchestrated the deal in November 2021 but allowed him to undergo disk-replacement surgery.
“I kind of went from one polar opposite to the other,” Eichel said. "In Buffalo, they were always working towards the future. It was never about right now. I understand that situation. It was about getting draft picks, developing them and working towards, OK, what can we be like in a year, two years or whatever it might be for now.
“To be able to play in place where the goal and the standard every season is to be the last team, it's the best. It's what you want as a player. We have the utmost confidence in management and ownership to make our team as good as it possibly can every year to try to win the ultimate goal.”
The Golden Knights' way has been an unqualified success.
They reached the Stanley Cup Final in their first year in 2018 and have made the playoffs every season except one. Vegas fulfilled owner Bill Foley's vision of winning the Cup in its sixth year.
The Golden Knights have attracted their share of detractors along the way, many fans of other teams not happy with an organization that has had one of the strongest expansion runs in sports. Vegas' use of LTIR also has prompted claims of salary-cap manipulation, allowing the club to make daring moves at the trade deadline.
Even many Golden Knights fans have been turned off by the cutthroat nature of the organization. But the club remains enormously popular as evident by the numerous team license plates throughout the Las Vegas area and the electric atmosphere at T-Mobile Arena.
Winning, of course, helps, and that's the bottom-line consideration for the organization.
It's a major reason coach Bruce Cassidy was interested in Vegas after the Boston Bruins fired him in June 2022. He's already the third coach in Golden Knights history, and Cassidy certainly bought time by winning a championship in his first season.
But he also knows patience can be thin and memories short.
“I'd rather be in that position than a team that's the opposite or somewhere down the road from that,” Cassidy said. "You might have a little less scrutiny or pressure or whatever words you want to use, but I like to win. I enjoyed the feeling of winning the Stanley Cup, and I'd take the pressure that goes along with it any day to do it all over again.”
Freelance writer W.G. Ramirez contributed to this report.
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Vegas Golden Knights center Zach Aston-Reese, back right, is congratulated after scoring a goal by defenseman Ben Hutton, left, and center Jakub Brabenec in the third period of an NHL preseason hockey game against the Colorado Avalanche, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury makes a save against the Winnipeg Jets during the third period of a preseason NHL hockey game Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Bailey Hillesheim)
RIPON, Wis. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris rallied with Republican Liz Cheney in the birthplace of the modern Republican Party on Thursday as the pair delivered a double-barreled denunciation of GOP nominee Donald Trump as a dire threat to democracy.
With some people hoisting signs “Country over Party,” Harris told the crowd that “people of every party must stand together” to reject Trump, citing his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his failure to quell the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
It was an improbable moment — a Democratic nominee giving a nod to a rival party member and to the origins of the opposing party in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign — and it demonstrated how much Harris is attempting to win over moderate and crossover Republican voters.
Harris said of Trump, “He refused to accept the will of the people and to accept the results of an election that was free and fair."
“The president of the United States must not look at our country through the narrow lens of ideology or party partisanship or self-interest," she added. "Our nation is not some spoil to be won. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.”
Cheney is one of Trump's most ardent antagonists. She is the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and was the top GOP lawmaker on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, earning Trump’s disdain and effectively exiling herself from her own party.
“Violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do," Cheney told the crowd as she recounted Trump refusing to act as he watched the violent attack on television. Someone in the crowd yelled “coward!” Others booed.
Adding to the surreal nature of the event, the crowd cheered references to Dick Cheney and to another Republican former vice president: Mike Pence, who refused to bow to pressure from Trump and attempt to stop the certification in Congress of Biden's 2020 victory.
“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is,” Liz Cheney said, while urging the crowd to "meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth. To reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump.”
In an interview Thursday night with Fox News Channel, Trump said of Harris and Cheney: “I think they hurt each other. I think they’re so bad, both of them.”
Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-endorsed candidate two years ago and endorsed Harris, the Democratic nominee, last month. The two women appeared together in Ripon, home to a white schoolhouse where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the start of the Republican Party.
“I know that she loves our country, and I know she will be a president for all Americans,” Cheney said of Harris. Noting that she herself remains conservative, Cheney said she was “honored to join her in this urgent cause.”
Harris is on a two-day Wisconsin and Michigan swing, while Trump was in Michigan on Thursday as both candidates grapple for wins in the “blue wall” battleground states, which also include Pennsylvania.
While Cheney and Harris spoke, the former president took his social media site to say Democrats and prosecutors have lied about the "huge crowd of Patriots gathered in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.”
That was a far cry from President Joe Biden's reaction. Arriving back at the White House after touring damage from Hurricane Helene in Georgia and Florida, Biden said of Cheney: “She made one of the most consequential speeches I’ve ever heard. She has character.”
“I know her dad,” Biden added. “We argue like hell, but I always admired his courage and honesty. What she did not took only political courage, but physical courage.”
Harris’ visit to Wisconsin came a day after a federal judge unsealed a 165-page court filing outlining prosecutors’ case against Trump for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction.
Trump didn't mention the document filed by special counsel Jack Smith or Cheney's appearance with Harris during an 82-minute speech at a rally in Saginaw County, Michigan. In 2020, Biden won the bellwether county by a slim 303 votes, contributing to his victory in the state.
As Trump spoke, his campaign announced he'll appear in Georgia on Friday with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The two men have made peace after Trump in August unleashed a blistering attack on Kemp, whom he has faulted for not giving in to his efforts to overturn his loss in 2020.
During the 2020 campaign, Cheney criticized Harris as “a radical liberal" who “wants to recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” a reference to unrest that took place in those cities after the murder of George Floyd.
But Jan. 6 was a turning point for Liz Cheney and her family. Both Cheneys are backing Harris, part of a cadre of current and former Republican officials who have broken with the vast majority of their party, which remains in Trump’s corner. Harris wants to portray her candidacy as a patriotic choice for independent and conservative voters who were disturbed by Trump’s unwillingness to cede power. Trump continues to deny his defeat with false claims of voter fraud.
Harris on Thursday also was endorsed by Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a young White House aide during Trump's presidency and described during a hearing of Cheney's Jan. 6 congressional committee how she grew disgusted by Trump’s refusal to stop the rioters that day. Harris' campaign also began airing ads targeting Republicans, independents and former Trump voters in battleground states.
Cheney’s presence prompted some dissonance for Harris supporters in the Ripon audience, especially those whoremember her father’s role as a Republican headliner.
Victor Romero, 46, said it was “a little weird” to be at an event with her.
“I still don’t like Liz Cheney’s politics," he said. "But I’m glad that she understands the Republican Party that currently exists is just for Trump.”
Younger voters, though, reported knowing Cheney primarily for standing up to Trump.
“She stuck to her morals," said Kynaeda Gray, 22.
Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Saginaw, Michigan, Will Weissert in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris applauds at a campaign event with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., left, attends a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, left, arrives to speak at a campaign event with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., right, at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., arrives to speak at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at Ripon College in Ripon, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign event at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in University Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in University Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump gestures at a campaign event at Discovery World, Friday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boards Air Force Two at Augusta Regional Airport in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, en route to Washington, after visiting the area impacted by Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
