Nothing sends a message in sports like a trade deadline.
Buy, sell or rent.
Win now. Win later.
Work for owner Eugene Melnyk and probably never win again.
The one delivered Monday from the Golden Knights to their locker room and fan base was as clear as it was needed for a team trying to find itself in late February: The taste of reaching a Stanley Cup Final last season was far too delicious not to attempt a second straight helping.
In trading for high scoring winger Mark Stone from Ottawa, one of those high-profile players Melnyk’s team wanted to move and did, the Knights continued to obliterate what expansion era thinking has always been in these matters.