(Photo Credit: Ken Boehlke, SinBin.vegas)

Last week, the Golden Knights made the signing of Carter Hart official after initially announcing a PTO when he joined the team on October 16th. The contract is a two-year deal carrying an AAV of $2 million per season.

Yesterday, general manager Kelly McCrimmon made his first public comments since the controversial signing. As part of his weekly appearance on the VGK Insider Show, McCrimmon fielded two questions from Golden Knights employee Daren Millard on the team’s partner radio network.

The first was on the process of adding Hart to the organization.

We had monitored that situation all the way through and it was dealt with in the court system and the NHL and NHLPA conferred and made the decisions they made, so we monitored that all the way. We took our guidance from there. Once that was cleared he was a player we were interested in. I think he’s a good person, I think he spoke well when we introduced him to the media. He’s a player I’ve known for many years from his time in the Western Hockey League. -Kelly McCrimmon on VGK Insider Show

McCrimmon continued…

I think his abilities on the ice are good, but we wouldn’t have crossed that threshold if we didn’t believe in the person. -McCrimmon on VGK Insider Show

McCrimmon shared that Hart is on the current East coast road trip with team and described how he’s looked so far after a nearly two-year layoff.

I defer to our goalie coach Sean Burke on that. Sean’s been really happy with how he’s getting up to speed. He obviously hasn’t been in practices for a long time and right now he’s a third goalie so the two goalies, Akira and Carl, they need a net. They need to get the work a starter needs to get and get the work that a backup needs to get so Carter’s left with whatever time he can get over the course of a practice. On this particular trip Sean has had small groups out on a couple of occasions because of the early start times on the weekend we didn’t have a full morning skate. He’s getting acclimated and up to speed. I think an important part of it as well is getting time around the team and the coaches to get to know his teammates and develop relationships with the coaching staff and that’s why he traveled with us here even though he’s not eligible to play. -McCrimmon on VGK Insider Show

Criticism of the Golden Knights for signing Hart has been widespread in the national media and fans at T-Mobile Arena and Benchmark International Arena in Tampa have displayed signs along the glass during warmups expressing their dissent. Also, the team’s social media has been inundated with comments, no matter the subject of the post, referring to the team as the “Vegas Golden Sex Offenders.”

Hart will become eligible to play in NHL games beginning on December 1st.

**The entire interview with McCrimmon can be found here. It begins at 14:50.**