Habs News: NHL Seattle Expansion Draft 2021 Rules, Montreal Canadiens Mock Protection List
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — Two years ago at this time, 30 NHL General Managers were putting the final touches in their protection list ahead of the Vegas Expansion Draft. At that draft, the Canadiens lost Alexei Emelin to the Golden Knights, who was traded to the Nashville Predators prior to the start of the season.
Two years from now, 30 NHL General Managers will need to go through the same exercise in preparation for the Seattle 2021 Expansion Draft. Vegas will be exempt from the process.
There was a lot of discussion and debate over the Canadiens protected list at that time, so we decided to put ourselves in Marc Bergevin shoes if he had to submit a list today in preparation of an expansion draft.
Expansion Draft Rules
The NHL has already announced that the rules for the expansion draft will be the same as in 2017. These are the guidelines that we will be following:
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 2019-20 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 2019-20 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 2019-20 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to 2019-20. 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.
Goalies
The goalies would be the easiest decision for Bergevin for two reasons. Carey Price would be protected because you don’t risk losing your franchise player without getting anything in return and because I assume that he wouldn’t waive his no movement clause.
Protected: Carey Price
Unprotected: Charlie Lindgren
Defencemen
Jeff Petry and Karl Alzner both have a no-trade clause in their respective contracts, which means they would take up two spots on the list if they both don’t waive the clause. Let’s assume that Alzner would waive it since he mentioned at the end of the season that he would do whatever it takes to get back into the NHL. Shea Weber is an easy choice and I would protect Brett Kulak to minimize the potential loss of losing a left defenceman, which is the team’s weakness at the moment.
Protected: Shea Weber, Jeff Petry, Brett Kulak
Unprotected: Karl Alzner, Christian Folin, Mike Reilly
Exempt: Victor Mete, Noah Juulsen, Jordie Benn
Forwards
There would be difficult decisions that would need to be made by Bergevin for the seven forwards that would need to be protected. Brendan Gallagher and Max Domi will likely be on everyone’s list that would be doing this exercise now. For the remaining five spots, I think you can make a solid argument for any of these seven forwards: Jonathan Drouin, Tomas Tatar, Andrew Shaw, Paul Byron, Philip Danault, Artturi Lehkonen, and Joel Armia.
The two forwards that didn’t make the cut on my list are Shaw and Armia. Shaw still has three seasons remaining on his contract with a $3.9-million cap hit. He’s coming off a career year offensively with 47 points in 63 games. I think that it can only go down for him going forward. This was the third consecutive season that he has missed significant time due to injury. I would consider him being injury prone, especially considering he has had documented concussions.
Armia is a difficult decision to make, because I like him. He does an excellent job protecting the puck, and plays well defensively. He scored a career high 13 goals last season and added 10 assists in 57 games. Armia missed most of November and all of December with a knee injury. Pro-rating his 23 points to a full season, would have also been a career high for him.
Protected: Brendan Gallagher, Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin, Tomas Tatar, Paul Byron, Philip Danault, Artturi Lehkonen
Unprotected: Andrew Shaw, Joel Armia, Dale Weise, Jordan Weal, Matthew Peca, Nate Thompson, Nicolas Deslauriers, Charles Hudon
Exempt: Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Ryan Poehling
Selected Player
If we assume that Seattle would take the best player from each team regardless of position, I think that Armia would be the selected player from the Canadiens. In this scenario, I would also think that Bergevin would foresee losing a player such as Armia, and would have made a trade prior to the expansion draft to avoid losing a quality asset without a return.
It is obvious that the roster will change from now until June 2021 when the actual list needs to be produced. But this exercise shows that some tough decisions will need to be made at that time. All players that are exempt today, will need protection two seasons from now.
By Chris G., Senior Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
Copyright © 2019 Rocket Sports
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