‘Best value’: Knights take goaltender in 3rd round after Thompson trade

General manager Kelly McCrimmon felt if there was an opportunity to trade back into the middle rounds of the NHL draft, the Golden Knights would look into that.

Then came their first surprise of the morning, trading goaltender Logan Thompson to the Washington Capitals, and suddenly they were in business.

Sending Thompson to Washington allowed the Knights to pick up the 83rd pick in this year’s draft and select another goaltender, Pavel Moysevich, from SKA St. Petersburg of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League.

Moysevich, 19, had a 1.25 goals-against average and .942 save percentage in 13 appearances last season. The 6-foot-5-inch netminder is the highest-selected goaltender in Knights history and was the first of three players the Knights selected on the second day of the draft Saturday at the Sphere.

“When you’re in that spot of the draft, you’re looking to pick the best player available,” assistant director of player personnel Bob Lowes said. “We just thought at the time it was best value for that pick. We have good intel on him.”

Lowes said Moysevich got rave reviews from manager of goaltending development Mike Rosati. His size and athleticism stood out, as well as playing at such a young age for the best hockey league in Russia.

Playing in the KHL could make Moysevich further along in development than other goalie prospects, Lowes said. Prospects like Jesper Vikman (fifth round, 2020) and Carl Lindbom (seventh round, 2021) just finished the first years of their entry-level contracts and continue to show improvement among Knights brass. The organization is also high on 2022 fourth-round pick Cameron Whitehead, a sophomore at Northeastern.

“(Moysevich’s) development path doesn’t get in the way of any of this,” McCrimmon said. “He’ll continue to play in the KHL, so it doesn’t change anything in the short term for the goaltenders we already have under contract.”

The Knights also acquired a third-round pick in next year’s draft in the Thompson trade.

The Knights ended their draft with four players selected. The weekend began when they picked Tri-City left wing Trevor Connelly with the 19th pick in the first round Friday. He’s a talented forward who comes with some off-ice concerns.

Connelly posted a picture to Snapchat in 2022 of a teammate sitting in a children’s area of a library with building blocks assembled in the shape of a swastika.

In 2021, he was accused of directing a racial slur toward an opponent. Discipline was not upheld by the California Amateur Hockey Association because the allegation could not be corroborated.

Lowes reaffirmed the Knights did their due diligence before taking Connelly in the first round.

The Knights tend to zero in on 200-foot players when making their selections, but Connelly fits a different profile. He’s a playmaking winger that the Knights feel has high upside with his offensive game.

“We don’t get a lot of times to pick going forward,” Lowes said. “It was an opportunity to get a player that could be a top-two-line player and has high-end skill and offensive upside. That’s the exciting part.”

The Knights used their third pick, which came at 180th overall in the sixth round, on Kitchener left wing Trent Swick. They then took center Lucas Van Vliet from the U.S. National Team Development Program with the 197th pick in the seventh round.

The Knights traded their final selection at 212th overall to the Capitals for a 2025 sixth-round pick.

Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.