Report: Vegas retained salary on Derick Brassard to keep him away from Jets

The Penguins, Senators and Golden Knights completed a three-way trade today which involved the following:

To #Sens
2018 1st round pick (PIT)
2019 3rd round pick (PIT)
Filip Gustavsson
Ian Cole

To #Pens
Derick Brassard
Vincent Dunn
2018 3rd round pick (OTT)
Tobias Lindberg

To #GoldenKnights
Ryan Reaves
2018 4th round pick (VAN)

Chris Johnston of Sportsnet reported that “The #VGK are retaining 40% of Derick Brassard’s salary as part of this deal.”

Lots of folks were left scratching their heads as to why Vegas was retaining salary on the deal.  John Shannon of Sportsnet was also curious about this:

And he got his answer:

So the Golden Knights facilitated this move to keep Derick Brassard away from the Jets and reduce Winnipeg’s strength up the middle.

Of course the Vegas GM is denying this played a role:

The Trade Deadline drama continues until Monday, February 26th at 3 pm ET.

As always stay tuned for the latest Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose news by keeping it locked to our web site  illegalcurve.com and on social media including Twitter | Facebook | Instagram.  You can also follow me on twitter as well (@icdave).