2021 Seattle Expansion Draft

[Jerzey]

Might seem a little premature right now but this off-season should be pretty important for us to make some big move regarding the expansion draft. As of now we don’t really even have anyone to expose to Seattle. I’m assuming the rules will be the same as the Vegas expansion draft and that we’ll be protecting 7 forwards, 3 defense men, and a goalie. 
 

Guys like Hughes, Boqvist, and Smith should be exempt from the draft and Palmieri and Goose are UFA’s so unless we re-sign then before the draft they should be exempt too. 
 

These are the rules from the Vegas expansion draft so we can probably assume they’ll be the same...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcsports.com/washington/washington-capitals/rules-2017-nhl-expansion-draft-date-time-whos-eligible-how-watch%3famp
 

2017 NHL EXPANSION DRAFT SUMMARY OF RULES:

- All 30 current NHL teams must submit a Protected List of players to the NHL by Saturday, June 17 at 5 p.m. ET

- Either include a list of seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goaltender OR eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender

- Players with a "No Movement" clause must be protected if the player does not waive the clause

- First and second-year professional players and unsigned draft picks are not eligible for the expansion draft and won't need to be protected

- All other players are eligible for the Expansion Draft

- The entire NHL is under a 'roster freeze.' No trades, no waivers until after the Golden Knights' roster is created

- Protected lists are sent to all 31 teams on Sunday, June 18. Golden Knights are allowed to interview eligible players.

- Las Vegas must submit a list of 30 players to the NHL by Wednesday, June 21 at 10 a.m.

- Golden Knights must select one player from each current NHL team

- 30-man roster must include 14 forwards, nine defensemen, and three goaltenders

- 20 players must be under contract for the 2017-18 season

- Salaries of the players selected must combine to be between 60 and 100 percent of the salary cap's upper limit

 

So basically that leaves us protecting:

Forwards:

Hischier 

Zacha

Bratt

Wood

?

?

?

Defense:

Subban

Butcher

Severson

Goalie:

Blackwood

Exposed:

Schneider and McLeod. I’m probably missing some names here.

We could protect guys like Joey Anderson, Janne Kuokkanen, or Nicholas Merkley or we could try to lock Palmieri and Goose early. And do we re-sign Zajac at this point? I’m guessing he probably wants to finish out in NJ but he might follow Lou for his last couple of years.
 

Then we could possibly take someone from another team who has to be protected for good assets. 
 

Lot’s of questions to be asked like do we bother exposing Subban at that point? He’ll only have one year left on his contract and it’s not hindering us in any way. Seattle would almost definitely take him but maybe he turns things around under the new management/coaching staff.

Do we sign Zajac to an extension with the intentions of exposing him to Seattle? 
 

What does your expansion draft protection/exposure list look like?

Edited August 3, 2020 by Jerzey

[mfitz804]

Tough question, but mostly because I’m not sure there’s many guys I care about protecting. 

I like Wood, but do I feel like we have to protect him? Not really. Would Butcher really be that big of a loss? Or Subban? 

I wouldn’t expose Subban for the simple reason that I think if he has even a marginally good 2020-2021 (or whatever the fvck it’s called if it’s delayed), you can probably get pucks back for him. And the salary isn’t hurting us. 

Signing Zajac to expose him would be really disrespectful toward a guy that was here a very long time and probably wants to finish here. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, because that was for different ownership/management for part of his tenure. Maybe they don’t feel that loyalty toward him. I would rather let him walk and leave where he signs up to him. But, I also wouldn’t rule out bringing him back in a 4th line/specialty type role, because he’s really not taking a spot away from anyone good. 

Schneider you definitely expose, and you probably are still stuck with him. 

[Nicomo]

Ideally they’d take Cory off our hands, but there’s probably almost no chance of that happening. 

[Jerzey]

42 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Tough question, but mostly because I’m not sure there’s many guys I care about protecting. 

I like Wood, but do I feel like we have to protect him? Not really. Would Butcher really be that big of a loss? Or Subban? 

I wouldn’t expose Subban for the simple reason that I think if he has even a marginally good 2020-2021 (or whatever the fvck it’s called if it’s delayed), you can probably get pucks back for him. And the salary isn’t hurting us. 

Signing Zajac to expose him would be really disrespectful toward a guy that was here a very long time and probably wants to finish here. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, because that was for different ownership/management for part of his tenure. Maybe they don’t feel that loyalty toward him. I would rather let him walk and leave where he signs up to him. But, I also wouldn’t rule out bringing him back in a 4th line/specialty type role, because he’s really not taking a spot away from anyone good. 

Schneider you definitely expose, and you probably are still stuck with him. 

What I meant by signing Zajac to expose him was an agreement made between him and management to expose him but even then it might be seen as disrespectful. He’s already 35 at this point though so I’m not sure hanging onto him is really a good idea either way.

[mfitz804]

5 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

What I meant by signing Zajac to expose him was an agreement made between him and management to expose him but even then it might be seen as disrespectful. He’s already 35 at this point though so I’m not sure hanging onto him is really a good idea either way.

I guess that's a little better, but I would rather give him his options. I guess if he was excited about moving 3,000+ miles away from his family to play for an expansion team, then I wouldn't mind the agreement. But where we know he wants to finish here, that's likely the last place he would want to go. Maybe he gets picked, but maybe he doesn't. It would be treating him purely as an asset instead of as a person, which would sit the wrong way with me. 

As far as hanging onto him goes, it goes back to the old thing I have said many times. if not him, then who? Would I rather have 35 year off Travis Zajac or Mike McLeod centering my 4th line? I'm not saying give him a 7 year deal, but if he would take 2 years at a bit of a cut from his current salary, I would consider it. 

[Nicomo]

1 minute ago, mfitz804 said:

I guess that's a little better, but I would rather give him his options. I guess if he was excited about moving 3,000+ miles away from his family to play for an expansion team, then I wouldn't mind the agreement. But where we know he wants to finish here, that's likely the last place he would want to go. Maybe he gets picked, but maybe he doesn't. It would be treating him purely as an asset instead of as a person, which would sit the wrong way with me. 

As far as hanging onto him goes, it goes back to the old thing I have said many times. if not him, then who? Would I rather have 35 year off Travis Zajac or Mike McLeod centering my 4th line? I'm not saying give him a 7 year deal, but if he would take 2 years at a bit of a cut from his current salary, I would consider it. 

It would have to be more than a bit of a cut, but I agree with everything else here. Can’t do Travis like that. 

[mfitz804]

8 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

It would have to be more than a bit of a cut, but I agree with everything else here. Can’t do Travis like that. 

Not with our payroll, it wouldn't. We could give him a raise for 2 years and it would probably be irrelevant. 

[Nicomo]

15 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Not with our payroll, it wouldn't. We could give him a raise for 2 years and it would probably be irrelevant. 

Just because you can afford to overpay doesn’t mean you should. That would set a bad precedent. What are other guys going to want if we’re paying an over-the-hill Zajac 5 mil+? 

[mfitz804]

1 hour ago, Nicomo said:

Just because you can afford to overpay doesn’t mean you should. That would set a bad precedent. What are other guys going to want if we’re paying an over-the-hill Zajac 5 mil+? 

I think "bit" is a subjective term and your bit and my bit are different sizes. 

The number that popped in my head is $4.25 - $4.5 x 2. 

But if you are talking precedent, we just paid the corpse of Wayne Simmonds (ok, a younger corpse, but still a corpse) $5m for one season. You don't give a guy who was your top center (by default, but still) and played on your team for a million years $5m x 2? What does that say about your loyalty when you just gave that much to a guy who had never done anything for you, did nothing for you, and will never do anything for you? THAT is a bad precedent. 

Cutting your most veteran guy by $1.5m a year when you clearly have the money to spend is not. 

[Nicomo]

4 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I think "bit" is a subjective term and your bit and my bit are different sizes. 

The number that popped in my head is $4.25 - $4.5 x 2. 

But if you are talking precedent, we just paid the corpse of Wayne Simmonds (ok, a younger corpse, but still a corpse) $5m for one season. You don't give a guy who was your top center (by default, but still) and played on your team for a million years $5m x 2? What does that say about your loyalty when you just gave that much to a guy who had never done anything for you, did nothing for you, and will never do anything for you? THAT is a bad precedent. 

Cutting your most veteran guy by $1.5m a year when you clearly have the money to spend is not. 

Simmonds definitely shouldn’t have gotten that much, but they were gambling on him returning to form (even in a down year he still scored 17 goals the previous season), but we obviously lost on that one. 

Zajac pretty much is what he is at this point though. I’d say offer him something closer to what Zacha just got. Maybe 2.5 x 2? He’s going to be 36 years old when his current contract is up. And I don’t think they should overpay out of shear loyalty. 

[mfitz804]

Travis is one year removed from having the best non-Parise season of his career, I’m not as convinced as you are that he’s finished. 

But using your own argument about precedent, how do you make the argument to Travis that he should take a $4m pay cut when you just paid a guy $5m to completely sh!t the bed? Especially when you have more than enough room under the cap?

[Jerzey]

So apparently Goose won’t have to be protected either way so we’re free to re-sign him whenever without worrying about it. 

We can also sign someone like Dadonov or Hoffman this off-season and we’ll be able to protect them. But if we sign a defenseman as a free agent then the decision gets a little trickier. Then we have to decide between Butcher, Severson, or Subban to expose. 

We could always go the other route and protect 8 skaters (defenseman or forwards) and a goalie. That is if we sign a defender and want to protect 4 of them for whatever reason.

[Nicomo]

16 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Travis is one year removed from having the best non-Parise season of his career, I’m not as convinced as you are that he’s finished. 

But using your own argument about precedent, how do you make the argument to Travis that he should take a $4m pay cut when you just paid a guy $5m to completely sh!t the bed? Especially when you have more than enough room under the cap?

Because Simmonds was a 6 x 20+ goal scorer who was only 30 years old, and we gave him a “prove it” type deal. 

Zajac will be a 36 year old (hopefully 4C). I also didn’t say he should take a 4 mil dollar pay cut. He currently makes 5.75 and I said offer him around half that. 

[mfitz804]

That’s right, I forgot his last 2 years already came with a salary cut, you’re correct. 

[SterioDesign]

Big sacrifice of course. But i'd be willing to expose Subban or trade him at the deadline if he's having a decent season.

[Nicomo]

5 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

Big sacrifice of course. But i'd be willing to expose Subban or trade him at the deadline if he's having a decent season.

He’s still arguably the best defenseman we have though (which is sad). Rather protect him and Severson and expose Butcher. 

[SterioDesign]

22 minutes ago, Nicomo said:

He’s still arguably the best defenseman we have though (which is sad). Rather protect him and Severson and expose Butcher. 

I'd keep Butcher over PK simply because Butcher choose to be here. He could have went anywhere and picked us. He's also younger and WAY cheaper

[Nicomo]

9 minutes ago, SterioDesign said:

I'd keep Butcher over PK simply because Butcher choose to be here. He could have went anywhere and picked us. He's also younger and WAY cheaper

He’s also not very good. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that rookie season becomes an outlier of his career. 

Edited August 4, 2020 by Nicomo

[Nicomo]

Besides, the Rock is training PK now. He’s going to be jacked next season and out there wrecking everybody. Lol

[mfitz804]

8 hours ago, SterioDesign said:

Big sacrifice of course. But i'd be willing to expose Subban or trade him at the deadline if he's having a decent season.

I would not mind exposing him in the event they can't work a trade. But I think they will be able to work a trade. I'm not expecting they'll re-sign him, he's expensive, and last season he was awful. If he has a bounce back year, he'll be easy to trade.

 

7 hours ago, Nicomo said:

Besides, the Rock is training PK now. He’s going to be jacked next season and out there wrecking everybody. Lol

If nothing else, I assume we'll be able to smell whatever he is cooking. 

[T0asterleav1ns]

Hope we expose Wood. He is just too damn stupid to ever be a good hockey player, and I think Seattle would probably take him. 

[mfitz804]

16 minutes ago, T0asterleav1ns said:

Hope we expose Wood.

Was necessary to quote this. 

[RunninWithTheDevil]

On 8/4/2020 at 1:15 AM, Nicomo said:

Besides, the Rock is training PK now. He’s going to be jacked next season and out there wrecking everybody. Lol

This.  I want another look at Subban after this offseason. He is CUT. UP.   He looks like PK Subban before the injury.

[mfitz804]

23 minutes ago, RunninWithTheDevil said:

This.  I want another look at Subban after this offseason. He is CUT. UP.   He looks like PK Subban before the injury.

I'm not sure that's what was missing in his game, but I am not ready to give up on him yet either. 

[Nicomo]

6 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

I'm not sure that's what was missing in his game, but I am not ready to give up on him yet either. 

Well, other than his shot being off this season (and his offensive game in general) he wasn’t really throwing the big hits he used to either. I remember seeing him absolutely destroy guy’s when he was in Montreal.