Vegas Golden Knights can officially make transactions

The Vegas Golden Knights can officially make deals with other teams.

According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the NHL has emailed its clubs “to let them know (the Golden Knights) now have official standing and are able to complete transactions.”

This means that the team can acquire draft picks, unsigned draft choice and start making deals related to the expansion draft. Earlier in the day, the NHL said it was expected that the Golden Knights would officially close on their $500 million entrance fee to join the league for the 2017-18 season.

On Feb. 21, owner Bill Foley spoke with a KNXT Radio in Las Vegas, saying the team’s payments wouldn’t be approved by March 1.

“We won’t make it before the trade deadline. The documentation is unbelievable. I have documentation with the league on a franchise agreement. I have documentation on a loan we are taking out with CitiBank. I’ve got my personal stuff, which all has to get in and get approved. If you saw the stack of documents you’d say it’s not a pretty picture,” Foley said according to Sin Bin Vegas.

TSN pointed out how Vegas’ inability to close the deal before the March 1 trade deadline, which is at 3 p.m. eastern time Wednesday, wasn’t as important as initially perceived, since the team can’t make transactions involving current league players.

According to Foley, McPhee was already speaking with other general managers to figure out how to best operate moving forward.

“George is having informal calls informal talks with various GMs,” Foley said. “Other teams want to do more than we want to do. They want to lock up some of their players for the playoff run and after the playoff run. We aren’t going to get ahead of ourselves. George is going to make good deals. George is a deal maker especially in hockey. If we give up the right to draft a good player we are going to get something good for it.”

The Golden Knights should be able to attend the league’s annual meeting of general managers, which will take place next week in Boca Raton, Florida. Golden Knights GM George McPhee explained the importance of his attendance for this event in a recent interview with Puck Daddy.

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“We’d like to start doing some business,” McPhee said. “We’re ready to go and it’s important for us to be involved. It’s important for us to be at the table at the GM’s meetings because there are important decisions regarding the league and all of hockey in general are being made there and Las Vegas should be heard.”

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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