Vegas Golden Knights make room for Jack Eichel by placing Mark Stone on LTIR

Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

The Vegas Golden Knights will be placing forward Mark Stone on the long-term injured reserve, general manager Kelly McCrimmon said Monday.

It comes as Jack Eichel makes his return to NHL action Wednesday marking what will be his first game with the team.

DailyFaceoff’s Frank Seravalli suggested this move was possible on last week’s Ice Breakers.

Stone, 29, has appeared in 28 games this year with the Golden Knights scoring eight goals and 28 points. Despite that, he’s been in and out of the lineup throughout the year missing 20 games.

The injury sending him to the reserve has been cited as a reoccurring back injury.

According to PuckPedia, adding Stone to the LTIR while removing Eichel from it brings their LTIR pool to $14.7-million. This means with Alec Martinez still on LTIR, the Golden Knights have $5.24-million in cap space.

Eichel, 25, will draw in for his first games with the Golden Knights after being acquired in November 2021. Eichel underwent an artificial disk replacement on his neck and had been recovering since. He joined the team for full-contact practices last week, and now, will draw into the lineup.

DailyFaceoff projects Eichel to draw in on the Golden Knights’ top line alongside Max Pacioretty and Evgenii Dadonov.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.