Vegas Selects Chris Thorburn From Jets

It’s official, forward Chris Thorburn is now property of the Vegas Golden Knights as it was announced that the club selected him off of the Winnipeg Jets available list as part of the Expansion Draft.

That sound you heard was the collective jaws of Jets fans across North America dropping.

The day of the draft started with a report by Darren Dreger over Twitter that was confirmed by Craig Custance an hour or so later, that the Jets had reached a deal with the Knights to not pick veteran defenseman Tobias Enstrom.

A few hours after that, we found out a few more details from the other big time TSN insider, Bob McKenzie with the prospect of a swap of some first round picks being involved.

Then the announcement was made.. The Vegas Golden Knights were selecting the veteran right winger Thorburn who by the way is a pending unrestricted free agent. Twitter’s reaction was one of astonishment..

It turns out it took a swap of first round picks and an extra pick from the Jets in 2019 to “convince” the newest NHL club to spend their pick on a pending UFA.

And with that, Toby Enstrom, Marko Dano, Matthiew Perreault and Adam Lowry – all names that have been tossed around for the last three months as possible future Vegas players – all remain Winnipeg Jets and under contract for the 2017-18 season.

There is still work for Kevin Cheveldayoff to do this coming weekend, but tonight has to be considered at least a small victory for the Jets GM to not actually lose a player under contract to the expansion Knights.