The Vegas Golden Knights have signed forward Mark Stone to a two-year, $18 million extension, the club announced Saturday.
The contract will carry an average annual value of $9 million.
The deal gives Vegas a slight discount on Stone’s current contract ($9.5 million AAV), which was set to expire at the end of the upcoming season. Stone is now signed through the 2028-29 campaign.
The new extension carries a full no-movement clause in both years, according to PuckPedia.
Stone, the only captain in Golden Knights franchise history, is coming off the best season of his career after scoring 28 goals and 73 points in 60 games. He went on to add seven goals and 12 points in 17 postseason games before Vegas’ playoff run was cut short by the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Final.
Since arriving in Vegas at the deadline in 2019, Stone has recorded 396 points in 400 regular-season games, leading all Vegas skaters in that time. He is the all-time Golden Knights leader in playoff goals (43) and points (84), appearing in 102 contests.
Notably, Stone scored a hat trick in Game 5 against the Florida Panthers to help Vegas clinch its first Stanley Cup title in franchise history back in 2023.
Stone was the first player to score a hat trick in the Final since Peter Forsberg in 1996 and only the third in NHL history to do so in a Cup-clinching game.
There’s no ambiguity when it comes to Stone’s importance to this team, and it goes far beyond his impact on the scoresheet. His elite two-way play has led to two Frank J. Selke Trophy nominations as the best defensive forward in the NHL, and he leads the league in takeaways per 60 minutes since 2018-19 with 3.31.
Another thing that is difficult to miss about Stone’s game is the emotion and fire with which he plays. That intensity is infectious to both teammates and fans alike, and he backs it up in every facet of the game, making him a vital component of Vegas’ core.
But when all is said and done, Stone’s leadership on and off the ice is not quantifiable.
Even so, there’s something to be said for giving $9 million to a 34-year-old with a complicated injury history, which includes two back surgeries in an eight-month span back in 2022-23.
However, this is Mark Stone.
Yes, he has been injury-prone, missing almost two full seasons worth of regular-season action in his time in Sin City. But the Golden Knights were never going to not re-sign him; it was just a matter of when and for how much.
Vegas answered both of those questions this weekend, completing an important piece of business ahead of training camp, which is set to begin Sept. 17.
The $9 million figure is actually a fair number for both sides, but there’s no doubt it’s a good deal for the Golden Knights. After all, Stone is taking a slight discount on his current eight-year contract ($9.5M AAV), and the two-year term is very reasonable.
Also, Stone is arguably a more valuable commodity than many players who recently signed comparable contracts (i.e., Patrick Kane’s two-year deal with Chicago for $8 million per season). Stone easily could have leveraged his value in negotiations leading up to July 1 2027; instead, he refrained from taking advantage of recent trends, which have seen cap hits skyrocket.
No matter what, you can’t really put a number on Stone’s value to this team, which was as apparent as ever this past season when he was out of the lineup. That’s especially true because when he did play, he was dominant.
Stone registered a point in 31 of his first 34 games and kicked off the season with a 14-game point streak (six goals and 24 points) before finding the back of the net in seven straight games between Dec. 29 and Jan. 10. He tallied three assists in the game that ended the streak at seven, then “bounced back” with goals in each of the next three. In the end, he recorded 10 goals and 18 points in that 11-game stretch.
In total, Stone had 21 multi-point efforts and a career-high 27 points on the power play last year.
He and the Golden Knights will look to return to the Stanley Cup Final this season under new bench boss Ryan Craig.
Year 10 in franchise history will begin Sept. 29 when the Golden Knights host the Chicago Blackhawks in the season opener.
Photo via the Golden Knights