What should the Golden Knights do with Robin Lehner?

Goaltender was injured for 2022-23 season with double hip surgery.

Robin Lehner remains one of the Vegas Golden Knights’ biggest question marks entering the offseason. Lehner carries a $5 million cap hit and did not play in the 2022-23 season.

So what should the Vegas Golden Knights do with Lehner? Let’s take a look at the options.

If Lehner is healthy enough to play, the Golden Knights have the option to play him in net and hope that he returns to some type of old form. The hope would be that he is healthy enough to be an effective starter, given his price tag. Out of the three options where Lehner is healthy, this is the likeliest of scenarios that take place.

The Golden Knights could explore a buyout of Lehner’s contract. It would carry a cap hit of $750,000 in the first year; $2.25 million the second year and $1.75 million in years three and four. The reason why it is not likely that the Golden Knights explore a buyout is Vegas’s history with the cap. They never have dead money in their salary cap, and this would effectively be the first time the Golden Knights have relied on such a tactic. While it is more likely Lehner stays, don’t count out a buyout as an option.

The Golden Knights could explore a trade, but finding a trade partner would be difficult to find given the $5 million cap hit. If the Golden Knights were going to trade him, they would likely have to retain some of it. This option is the least likely of the three scenarios.

All of those previously mentioned options are, of course, based on Lehner’s health. If Lehner unable to play due to injury or retires, the Golden Knights open up $5 million in cap space, which could be used to sign one of the 10 free agents on the big club.

Either way, a lot of what the Golden Knights do in the free-agent market will rely heavily on what happens with Lehner and his health.

"Those will be conversations that the medical team has with Robin as we move forward and assess kind of where he's at. We'll know more about that here with benefit of a little bit of time," general manager Kelly McCrimmon said.