Over the following week or so I am going to try and create protection lists for each NHL team based on what we know about the upcoming expansion draft. I am going to go alphabetically and hammer out a handful of teams per blog.
At the end of this I will attempt to draft the Las Vegas expansion team based on the players who are unprotected from this series of blogs.
I will be using General Fanager's expansion tool in order to be as accurate as possible with my selections. You can find that tool here . It is an incredibly clean interface and makes this process very easy to execute.
I am going to select protected players based on the current roster and will not assume future trades IE: Pittsburgh moving Marc-Andre Fleury to protect Matt Murray or Anaheim trading Fowler to free up an extra protection slot. I don't have a crystal ball so I will just use what is in front of me right now. Doing it this way is also a good way to see what teams have some work ahead of them in advance of the expansion draft.
You can find part one of this series that focused on Anaheim, Arizona, Boston, Buffalo, and Calgary here
You can find part two of this series that focused on Carolina, Chicago, Colorado, Columbus, and Dallas here
You can find part three of this series that focused on Detroit, Edmonton, Florida, Los Angeles and Minnesota here
You can find part four of this series that focused on Montreal, Nashville, New Jersey, New York Islanders, and New York Rangers here
Today we will look at Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Jose, and St. Louis.
Ottawa
The Senators are a team that is forever stuck in neutral as long as the ownership situation stays the same. They are wasting away one of the absolute best players in the game in Erik Karlsson. They remain a team that will be chasing the last playoff spot in the conference. Not exactly where you want to be. As far as the expansion draft goes they should make out OK.
Forwards: Bobby Ryan (NMC), Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone, Derick Brassard, Kyle Turris, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Curtis Lazar
Defensemen: Dion Phaneuf (NMC), Erik Karlsson, Marc Methot
Goalie: Craig Anderson
Available to Las Vegas: Zack Smith, Matt Puempel, Cody Ceci, Andrew Hammond, Clarke MacArthur*
I don't have Clarke MacArthur protected because of his unsure status as a result of his concussion issues. He may not be ready to start the season and may be out long term. If that is the case he won't need protection. Other than that there isn't much to be had from Ottawa as far as impact players go. The Senators will be able to survive whatever selection Las Vegas makes.
Philadelphia
The Flyers are slowly but surely rebuilding their franchise after the Paul Holmgren era gutted them of younger players. They hit a home run with Shayne Ghostisbehere and are now waiting on a few of the other younger players to develop. The defense corp. could still use some work but their goaltending is very good and they have some nice options on the forward side of things. Philadelphia should keep the big picture in mind when preparing for the expansion draft and that is how I am going to approach this as well.
Forwards: Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier, Wayne Simmonds, Scott Laughton, Nick Cousins
Defense: Shayne Gostisbehere, Radko Gudas, Brandon Manning
Goalie: Steve Mason
Available to Las Vegas: Michael Neuvirth, Matt Read, Michael Raffl, Dale Weiss
Both Matt Read and Michael Raffl have shown the ability to score goals at the NHL level in the past but at this stage of the game I would rather push my chips in on the two younger forwards (Cousins, Laughton) to keep progressing. Read's goal scoring has really fallen off. Raffl did net 21 goals in 2014-15 but his shooting percentage was ~15% and that is not his career norm.
Radko Gudas is known for his hitting but his impact on possession is probably understated. He isn't a liability. Brandon Manning has some nice underlying numbers in his small sample and I don't really see any other defensemen in pressing need of protection. Steve Mason is really good and there is no reason for Philadelphia to move away from him. Philadelphia is positioned fine for the expansion draft.
Pittsburgh
Moving across the state of Pennsylvania we encounter a situation that is not looking great. Based on current roster construction the Penguins are going to get hit hard. Las Vegas will be finding their starting goaltender from the Penguins based on the rules of this exercise. Marc-Andre Fleury has one of those pesky no movement clauses and that means he gets the protection slot. That leaves Matt Murray exposed. The Penguins will lose Matt Murray if they don't do something with Fleury. In real life they will sort this issue out eventually it is just a matter of how. Even if the Murray situation was a non-issue the Penguins would be losing a quality player here. Depending on if you used 7F/3D or 4F/4D Pittsburgh would be exposing players like Patric Hornqvist or Derrick Pouliot. At the moment it makes a lot more sense for Pittsburgh to use the 7F/3D approach.
Forwards: Sidney Crosby (NMC), Evgeni Malkin (NMC), Phil Kessel (NMC), Carl Hagelin, Patric Hornqvist, Bryan Rust, Scott Wilson
Defensemen: Kris Letang (NMC), Olli Maatta, Brian Dumoulin
Goalie: Marc-Andre Fleury (NMC)
Available to Las Vegas: Matt Murray, Derrick Pouliot, Eric Fehr, Tom Kuhnhackl, Justin Schultz, Ian Cole
Truth be told the Penguins really only need five forward spots but they also need four defense spots and that just isn't an option based on the expansion rules. Derrick Pouliot is the obvious player the Penguins are in danger of losing if they sort out their goaltending situation. However, for this blog series it is adios to Matt Murray.
San Jose
The defending Western Conference champions have some things working in their favor here. Joe Thornton is a pending UFA and will not eat up a protection slot which gives San Jose more wiggle room. I suppose Las Vegas could select Thornton but that would just be like trading for a player's rights. No guarantee of it panning out and I don't see Las Vegas going that route. The same could be said for Brent Burns who is also a UFA. I view this as an advantage for San Jose. They can come to agreements with both players and wait until after the expansion draft to sign these to franchise cornerstones.
There aren't many players in need o protection. San Jose can go with the 7F/3D approach here.
Forwards: Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Joel Ward, Mikkael Boedker, Melker Karlsson, Chris Tierney
Defense: Marc-Edourd Vlasic, Paul Martin, Justin Braun
Goalie: Martin Jones
Available to Las Vegas: Matt Nieto, Brenden Dillon, David Schlemko
I chose Tierney over Nieto based on age. Truth be told both players have very underwhelming possession numbers. If Las Vegas stays away from the unprotected UFA's (Thornton, Burns, Marleau, Wingels) there really isn't much to be had here. This is good for San Jose.
St. Louis
The Blues finally made some noise in the playoffs after stringing together multiple years of disappointment in a row. They have had some really good teams, but also had the unfortunate luck of running into the eventual Stanley Cup champion(s) in the early rounds. This will be Ken Hitchock's final year coaching in the NHL and former Wild head coach Mike Yeo will be taking over. Yeo should be left with a solid roster even after the expansion draft.
Forwards: Vladimir Tarasenko, Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz, Jori Lehtera, David Perron, Ty Rattie, Dmitrij Jaskin
Defensemen: Alex Pietrangelo, Jay Bouwmeester, Joel Edmundson
Goalie: Jake Allen
Available to Las Vegas: Magnus Paajarvi, Carl Gunnarsson
With players like Kevin Shattenkirk, Alex Steen, and Patrik Berglund being UFA's the Blues don't have to use up as many protection slots as they normally would have. It is also nice that Colton Parayko does not need protection. The last forward spot came down to Magnus Paajarvi and Dmitrij Jaskin. They have very similar outputs
Neither guy has shown the ability to generate offense in the NHL but both guys are decent on the possession front. I went with the younger player here.
So we have gone through 25 teams and there are only five left to go. The five remaining teams are Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington and Winnipeg.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»