How Golden Knights Are Affected By NHL Roster Freeze

A couple of NHL roster freezes are put in motion every year to halt player transactions for special events. We are currently in the midst of one for the Christmas season, which will run from Dec. 19 to the start of Dec. 28. 

No NHL teams are allowed to place players on waivers or make trades.

This is why we saw a couple of moves, such as the Colorado Avalanche trading for Denis Malgin and the Florida Panthers involved in a three-way trade before the deadline.

This rule is essentially in effect to try and prevent any players from having to move during the Holidays, which wouldn't be fun.

However, teams are still allowed to extend players, call up players from the minors, and activate players off injured reserve during this pause.

This means a few things for the Vegas Golden Knights and the five players they have on injured reserve. Brett Howden (lower-body), and Zach Whitecloud (lower-body) are both on LTIR, but could technically return anytime for the VGK in this roster freeze, given that teams are allowed to make cap-related moves to bring back players off LTIR. 

But neither Howden nor Whitecloud are expected to return soon.

Jack Eichel, Shea Theodore, and Paul Cotter are all on traditional injured reserve and can also return at any time, but would need a roster spot available for them to do so. But according to CapFriendly, these three players are already accounted for on the roster.

The only thing the roster freeze prevents the Golden Knights from doing until Dec. 28 is sending guys like Jonas Rondbjerg, Daniil Miromanov, or even Jake Leschyshyn back down to the Henderson Silver Knights. 

The only reason they would need to do this would be if said injured players are able to return to free up a roster spot and or cap space.

 But based on practice attendance and head coach Bruce Cassidy's comments regarding injured players, we will likely not see any injured players return until after Christmas.