Golden Knights trade goalie during his autograph session

The Vegas Golden Knights will do anything they have to do in order to win. Sometimes that means trading a player at the NHL Draft right in the middle of that player's autograph session with fans.

That is what happened on Saturday afternoon when they traded goalie Logan Thompson to the Washington Capitals for a 2024 third-round pick and a 2025 third-round pick.

With the draft taking place at Sphere in Las Vegas, Thompson was scheduled to sign autographs for fans on Saturday during the second day of the draft.

When he received the phone call from general manager Kelly McCrimmon that he was being traded, Thompson made the decision he was still going to show up and sign for fans who were expecting him.

“I was still going to come down for the fans,” said Thompson, via The Athletic . “It was cool to come down, sign some stuff and say hi to people — and bye. So it was an easy (choice) to come down.”

Thompson was a member of the Golden Knights' 2022-23 Stanley Cup-winning team and has been one of their regular goalies over the past couple of years. He is now headed to the Capitals where he will team up with Charlie Lindgren to split the goaltending duties there.

The timing of the trade is another reminder of how harsh the professional sports world can be for players and fans. Especially as it relates to the Golden Knights. They have developed a habit of being willing to fire, bench or trade anybody at any moment if there is a chance to improve even a little bit. It is difficult to argue with their results as they have been one of the NHL's best teams since they arrived in the league at the start of the 2017-18 season.

You also can't really blame them here. This wasn't an intentional act of being jerks, it was simply the timing of when the trade had to be made to get the draft pick to use on Saturday.