Breaking: Golden Knights trade 27-year-old goaltender during his autograph session.

The Vegas Golden Knights are willing to do everything it takes to win. Sometimes this entails trading a player during the NHL Draft while he or she is signing autographs for fans.

That is exactly happened on Saturday afternoon, when they sold goaltender Logan Thompson to the Washington Capitals in exchange for a 2024 and 2025 third-round draft picks.

Thompson was expected to sign autographs for fans on Saturday during the second day of the draft, which was held at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

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,” Thompson told The Athletic. “It was nice to come down, sign some stuff, and say hello to everyone — and then leave. So it was an easy decision to come down.

Thompson was a member of the Golden Knights’ 2022-23 Stanley Cup-winning club and has been a regular goalie in recent years. He has now been assigned to the Capitals, where he will share goaltender duties with Charlie Lindgren.

The timing of the move serves as yet another reminder of how cruel the professional sports industry can be for both players and spectators. Especially when it comes to the Golden Knights. They have acquired the habit of being willing to fire, bench, or trade anyone at any time if there is an opportunity to improve even little. It is impossible to argue with their results, since they have been one of the NHL’s greatest teams since their entry into the league at the start of the 2017-18 season.

You can’t really blame them in this situation. This wasn’t an intentional act of being jerks; it was just the timing of when the deal needed to be done in order to use the draft pick on Saturday.