Golden Knights rarely miss when trying to land high-profile talent

All of the NHL’s top goal scorers in the past five seasons have a shooting percentage of less than 20 percent.

That’s what it takes to be considered great. A little less than one in every five shots going in.

Kelly McCrimmon doesn’t have the luxury of being able to miss the net. When the Golden Knights general manager takes a shot, as he did again this week, it has to hit its intended target.

And more times than not under his watch, that’s exactly what happened.

The latest example came Thursday when the Knights pried Jack Eichel out of Buffalo, winning the sweepstakes for the All-Star center ahead of a handful of suitors.

“We’re not always interested in every situation that comes forward,” McCrimmon said. “There’s certain players that we have aggressively gone after and tried to bring into our organization. Jack is one of those.”

Since they reached the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season and ditched the model that relied on roster depth, the Knights have not shied away from big-game hunting. And they almost always get their man.

Max Pacioretty, Mark Stone and Robin Lehner were acquired through trades. Alex Pietrangelo arrived via free agency. The only player the Knights were attached to publicly that they’ve missed on was defenseman Erik Karlsson, who was traded to rival San Jose in 2018.

While other teams or GMs might shy away from such seismic deals, the Knights and McCrimmon appear to revel in them.

“I think the players in our dressing room love the fact that we provide as an organization every possible resource that they would ever want to be the best that they can be, and we do everything as an organization that we can do to try to help them win,” McCrimmon said.

In Eichel, the Knights now have the elite talent in the middle of the ice needed to match up with the Western Conference’s top centers, such as Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Los Angeles’ Anze Kopitar.

Once Eichel recovers from artificial disk replacement surgery in his neck, scheduled for Friday at Rocky Mountain Spine Clinic in Denver, the Knights also finally will have a quarterback for their ailing power play.

“That’s his specialty,” NHL Network analyst Mike Rupp said. “I don’t know if Mark Stone is a guy that’s going to be the nucleus of the power play. Jack is the centerpiece.”

The Knights didn’t overpay to acquire Eichel, sending Alex Tuch, top prospect Peyton Krebs and two draft picks to the Sabres. That doesn’t take into account whatever future moves are necessary to comply with the salary cap once the calvary returns from injured reserve, but for now McCrimmon was able to keep the roster mostly intact while pursuing a Stanley Cup.

And while it’s not a direct result of the offseason trade that sent fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury to Chicago for cap space, having a 25-year-old franchise center now on the roster makes that move a little easier to process.

Tuch’s combination of speed, size and skill will be missed in the lineup. But he was recovering from offseason shoulder surgery and didn’t contribute during the Knights’ 5-5 start entering Saturday’s game at Montreal, meaning his departure is easier to absorb.

He also was a frequent visitor to IR in his career, missing the season opener in four of the past five seasons.

With the Sabres, Tuch, 25, instantly becomes a top-six forward in a lineup that features several promising youngsters and top picks. More significantly for Buffalo, he wants to play for a franchise that has struggled to keep players happy and had an obvious falling out with Eichel.

Tuch grew up in Baldwinsville, New York, and was a Sabres fan as a child.

Meanwhile, Krebs is the fourth first-round pick traded by the Knights, not including the 2018 selection that was sent to Detroit.

At one point, McCrimmon reportedly had no interest in moving Krebs, 20, and there’s always a chance he could turn out to be the next Nick Suzuki. The Canadiens center signed an eight-year, $63 million contract extension last month and is off to a solid start through 12 games.

But Krebs has one point in 13 NHL games and was sent to the minors after the trade with Buffalo for more development. It’s another example of the Knights going for it now and worrying about the consequences later.

“There’s lots of teams, and our own included, where you have discussions with teams and there’s not a finish line in sight or a fit or a price that teams are comfortable with either giving or receiving,” McCrimmon said. “When Jack Eichel was available, when it was apparent that he may be moved, I guess what we knew to start with was we were interested.”

And when McCrimmon sets his sights on someone, he almost never misses.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.