Habs News: NHL Seattle Expansion Draft 2021 Rules, Montreal Canadiens Mock Protection List, Marc Bergevin, Cale Fleury, Noah Juulsen, Jake Allen, Ben Chiarot
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — In anticipation of the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, several teams made deals with the Golden Knights in order to protect specific players from getting selected. This approach helped George McPhee, Vegas general manager at the time, to build a team that made it to the Stanley Cup final in its inaugural season. I believe that the other organizations learned their lesson and won’t be as generous with Seattle.
In addition to the flat salary cap for the upcoming season, the general managers will also need to closely monitor their protection list for the expansion draft that’s scheduled to take place at some point after the 2020-21 season. There are a lot of balls in the air to be juggled for the general managers and they can’t afford to drop any.
In the sections below, I will help take some stress off Marc Bergevin‘s shoulders by preparing an updated projection of the protection list that he will submit to the National Hockey League (NHL). I’m feeling generous and I won’t even charge him for my services. It’s the second time, that I prepare a mock protection list for free for the organization.
Expansion Draft Rules
The rules for the expansion draft will be the same as in 2017 for Vegas. There has been no word of changes due to the shortened 2019-20 season and possibly 2020-21 season. For the purpose of this article, I will assume that there will no changes to the following guidelines:
Current NHL teams can protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goalie, under the following conditions.
* All players with no movement clauses at the time of the draft, and who decline to waive those clauses, must be protected and will be counted toward their team’s applicable protection limits.
* All first and second-year NHL players, and all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection and will not be counted toward protection limits.
In addition, all NHL teams must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the draft:
* One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played in at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.
* Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.
* One goalie who is under contract in 2021-22 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to 2021-22. If a team elects to make a restricted free agent goalie available to meet this requirement, that goalie must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the team’s protected list.
* Players with potential career-ending injuries who have missed more than the previous 60 consecutive games (or who otherwise have been confirmed to have a career-threatening injury) may not be used to satisfy a team’s player exposure requirements unless approval is received from the NHL. Such players also may be deemed exempt from selection.
I anticipate that the Canadiens will prefer the format of protecting seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie. In the following sections, I will use that format for my projections and then I will make an alternate list if the organization decides to protect eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goalie.
Goalies
Carey Price will be protected by default as his contract contains a no movement clause. If you’re part of the fan base that thinks that Price would waive his clause to head west, you will be disappointed.
Bergevin has some flexibility to meet the exposure requirement in goal. In addition to Jake Allen, a qualifying offer at the end of the 2020-21 season to Michael McNiven would be sufficient for him to be eligible as well. With the Canadiens lack of success of finding a qualified backup goalie over the last couple of years, Bergevin isn’t obliged to keep Allen until the draft if things head the same direction like Antti Niemi and Keith Kinkaid.
Protected: Carey Price
Unprotected: Jake Allen, Charlie Lindgren, Michael McNiven
Exempt: Cayden Primeau, Vasili Demchenko
Defencemen
The easy decision on defence is to protect Shea Weber, and Jeff Petry. Weber is part of the leadership group that will assure that the team has the right attitude to win, while Petry has a no movement clause that guarantees him a spot on the protection list. Petry’s comments after signing a contract extension displayed that he has no intention of wanting to waive his clause in order to leave the organization.
The interesting decision will be for the third spot, as it will be between Ben Chiarot and Joel Edmundson. When the Canadiens signed Edmundson, I wrote that it was an unnecessary signing, as his style of play is similar to Chiarot. Bergevin could have been thinking ahead and anticipating the possibility of one of those two individuals being selected by the Kraken.
As it stands now, I would protect Edmundson due to him being younger of the two, and because of the fact that he would be locked up for another three years, while Chiarot would have one year remaining. If Edmundson struggles this season, I can easily see Chiarot’s name to be protected instead.
Protected: Shea Weber, Jeff Petry, Joel Edmundson
Unprotected: Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, Victor Mete, Cale Fleury, Noah Juulsen, Xavier Ouellet, Gustav Olofsson
Exempt: Alexander Romanov, Josh Brook, Otto Leskinen, Kaiden Guhle
Forwards
For the forwards, my projections are based with the assumptions that Philip Danault signs a contract extension before the end of the 2020-21 season, and that pending unrestricted free agents Joel Armia and Tomas Tatar will not sign a new deal with Montreal before the expansion draft.
It was mentioned earlier in the column that there’s a lot of moving pieces for the general managers to prepare the protection list. I want to draw attention to all the Jordan Weal fans reading this column, as there’s some good news coming. If you’re not a supporter of Weal, get ready to yell at Claude Julien this upcoming season.
In order for my projections below to be compliant, this season Paul Byron needs to play at least 31 games, and Weal needs to have played in 19 games or more. In addition, Weal would have to be re-signed for the 2021-22 season.
Protected: Jonathan Drouin, Josh Anderson, Tyler Toffoli, Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault, Artturi Lehkonen, Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Unprotected: Tomas Tatar, Paul Byron, Joel Armia, Jordan Weal, Charles Hudon, Hayden Verbeek, Alexandre Alain, Jake Evans, Michael Pezzetta, Joseph Blandisi, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo
Exempt: Nick Suzuki, Ryan Poehling, Jesse Ylonen, Cameron Hills, Arsen Khisamutdinov, Joel Teasdale, Alex Belzile, Jake Lucchini, Brandon Baddock
Comparing Formats
In the 2017 expansion draft, only four of the 30 teams chose to protect eight skaters and one goalie instead of the format consisting of seven forwards, three defencemen and a goalie. The four teams chose this format as they had depth on defence that they preferred protecting.
The table below contains my projections from above and the unlikely scenario that the Canadiens choose the second format.
The second format would be interesting for Montreal in the scenario that they wanted to protect both Edmundson and Chiarot. If they go that route, it would be to the expense of Tyler Toffoli, Artturi Lehkonen, and Danault that would need to be exposed.
If the Byron and Weal scenarios mentioned earlier don’t materialize, the second format would make the protection list compliant. If not, look for Bergevin to potentially make moves at some point to acquire players that would fit the exposure requirements.
Selected Player
If we assume that Seattle takes the best player available from each team regardless of position, I believe that the selection from Montreal would be Jake Allen. His cap hit at $2.875-million makes him an attractive option for the Kraken to have as part of a tandem.
If Seattle covers their goaltending needs from other teams, I would be looking at selecting Cale Fleury or Noah Juulsen. Both defencemen have shown potential of being regulars in the NHL, and because of their age, the Kraken would have control of their rights longer than a veteran such as Chiarot.
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