Keegan Kolesar’s nine-year tenure with the Vegas Golden Knights ended Wednesday when the team traded him to the Detroit Red Wings for two draft picks. The 27-year-old forward, a staple on the fourth line and a key contributor to the 2023 Stanley Cup run, said the news came as a shock.
“It’s a lot. It’s a whirlwind,” Kolesar said Thursday via Zoom. “To play your entire career in one spot is pretty rare. I don’t really know the emotions right now because it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours for me, but I’m really excited to join a group that has a tremendous amount of skill and talent in their locker room.”
General manager Kelly McCrimmon delivered the news via text: “I have bad news.” The two spoke by phone afterward, and McCrimmon called it a tough conversation. “I think we’ll have a friendship forever,” McCrimmon said Wednesday. “I hope he does great. I’ll be the first guy to come shake his hand in the dressing room when we play Detroit.”
Kolesar, who signed a three-year, $7.5 million contract extension in December 2024, missed only 16 games due to injury over the past five seasons. He played 77 playoff games for Vegas, though his final moment with the team was being a healthy scratch in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. “That’s one where me and (John Tortorella) had a talk about that, and I just said, ‘Hey, Torts, whatever we got to do to win. Like, we’re two games away from winning the Stanley Cup. I won’t care what happens if we win,'” Kolesar recalled.
The Brandon, Manitoba, native was originally drafted by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the second round in 2015 and acquired by Vegas during the 2017 NHL Draft. He became a full-time NHL player in the 2020-21 season and helped set the culture for the expansion franchise. “The players made it such a wonderful place to just grow a family. I’m going to miss them a lot,” Kolesar said, fighting back tears. “It’s bittersweet. Sometimes, change is good. I get to grow my hockey pool a lot more with some new friends.”
Kolesar now joins a Red Wings team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2016, a stark contrast to the Knights’ three Stanley Cup Final appearances in nine years. “There’s a new task now of being on a new team and carving out an identity for me, and a path, and getting into the playoffs,” he said. “That, itself, is another motivator.”
