One of the biggest events of the NHL offseason will be the Expansion Draft, where the Seattle Kraken will form their team.
The Carolina Hurricanes are set to lose a roster player and ahead of the draft, they’ll need to determine who they’d be most comfortable to part with. This article will take a look at who the Hurricanes could protect and what the fallout could be.
For the sake of the article, I’ll say that Dougie Hamilton hasn’t re-signed in Carolina. Right now, it’s up in the air as to whether he’ll return and if he did commit to the Hurricanes, they could just wait until after the expansion draft to make the deal official, to avoid having to use a protection slot on him. Even without Hamilton though, the Hurricanes will still have some decisions to make.
We know that Alex Nedeljkovic will be the goalie protected but after that there are some spots up in the air. On the back end, they’ll protect Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce and either Jake Bean or Brady Skjei, going with a 7-3-1 format. To me, it should be an obvious choice to go with Bean in the last spot. He projects to have a very high offensive ceiling and despite his defensive shortcomings, he’s still very young and still has time to round out his game. Additionally, while Skjei was key for the Hurricanes early in the postseason, it’s not like he was without his own defensive flaws throughout the season, while adding minimal offense as well. I’d imagine his cap hit prevents Seattle from going after him and if they did, I don’t see that as a huge loss for Carolina.
Up front, the forwards who are locks to be protected would be Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen, Vincent Trocheck and Jordan Staal, who has a no-movement clause. If we don’t factor in pending unrestricted free agents like Brock McGinn, Jordan Martinook and Cedric Paquette, this leaves two more spots to decide on between Nino Niederreiter, Warren Foegele, Jesper Fast, Morgan Geekie or even Steven Lorentz.
In my opinion, it’s honestly a bit of a toss up as to who’s protected from that group. I’d doubt the Hurricanes use a spot on Lorentz and in my opinion, they shouldn’t protect Niederreiter either. Niederreiter will be 29 years old by the start of next season with just a single year remaining on his contract. While many people will disagree with me on this stance based on his bounce back year, the Hurricanes could realistically find an effective replacement for less than his $5.25 million cap hit, if he was selected by Seattle.
This leaves two spots to decide on between Warren Foegele, Morgan Geekie and Jesper Fast. Geekie is still just 22 years old and fits well with the team, while Fast is nearly 30 years old but does provide very good value on a $2 million contract for another two years. Previously, I would have expected Foegele to be protected but with him likely to be traded at some point before next season, would the Hurricanes really protect him and then lose someone like Jesper Fast to Seattle, just to turn around and trade Foegele anyways? I doubt it and as a result, I’m saying Fast and Geekie would be protected.
So this is what the protection list would look like:
Forwards (7): Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen and Vincent Trocheck, Jordan Staal, Jesper Fast, Morgan Geekie
If this is the protection list, the notable omissions would be Nino Niederreiter, Warren Foegele, Steven Lorentz and Brady Skjei.
Again, I don’t see Seattle targeting Skjei. The way the draft is structured, Seattle will have their pick of many defensemen, based on teams generally leaving a member of their top-four group exposed. Skjei is on an overpriced contract with three years remaining and the Kraken are simply going to have better options to pick from. No matter which forwards are exposed, I’d also be surprised to see Lorentz go, based on his lack of NHL experience and fairly low offensive ceiling.
This would leave Nino Niederreiter and Warren Foegele as the most likely options for Seattle. That said, I’d imagine the Hurricanes deal Foegele by then to avoid losing him for nothing, though if Foegele is still around, I could see Seattle going after him. Given that the Hurricanes probably wouldn’t get more than a third-round pick for him in a trade, I don’t see this as much of a loss for Carolina.
If he’s gone, perhaps Seattle would take Niederreiter, in order to retain salary and flip him for picks later. Again, many people may disagree with me on this, but I don’t see Niederreiter being selected as an issue, as the Hurricanes would simply be able to replace him with someone else at a cheaper price.
I will say that the Hurricanes are one of the few teams where you could see a range of different protection lists being projected. Skjei could possibly be protected over Bean, and it’s still a toss up as to who will be protected, from the group of Niederreiter, Foegele, Fast and Geekie. Provided that Bean is protected though, I would expect that one of the two forwards who isn't protected from that group of four players above gets selected by Seattle.
No matter how it goes, however, I don’t see the expansion draft being a huge issue for the Hurricanes, as the team should be able to protect all of their key, young players.
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Who do you think the Hurricanes will lose to Seattle?
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