The Golden Knights are keeping another veteran in the fold for a few more years. The team announced that they’ve signed winger Keegan Kolesar to a three-year, $7.5M extension that begins in the 2025-26 season.
The 27-year-old was set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Instead, he’ll stay with Vegas through the 2028-29 campaign and will get a nice raise along the way. Kolesar carries a $1.4M salary and cap charge in the final year of his current deal, meaning he’ll get an increase of $1.1M per season on this new agreement.
The Golden Knights acquired Kolesar back in 2017 from Columbus, flipping a mid-second-round pick to the Blue Jackets for his rights; Columbus wound up selecting Alexandre Texier with that selection. He was initially drafted in the third round (69th overall) by Columbus.
Kolesar has been a full-time regular for the Golden Knights since the 2020-21 season. Along the way, he has chipped in a bit offensively while becoming one of the more physical wingers in the league, notching at least 246 hits in each of the last three years.
This season, Kolesar has been more impactful in the offensive zone. He has already notched seven goals on the season, good for sixth on the team and just one shy of his career-high that he has reached in each of the last two seasons. He’s also still collecting more than three hits per game on average while his ATOI of 12:55 is also the highest of his career.
With that in mind, Kolesar was going to be heading for a fair-sized raise on the open market had this deal not been reached, especially since rugged wingers tend to generate a lot of interest in free agency. Instead, he’ll be sticking around with the Golden Knights where he’ll remain one of their longest-tenured players.
