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Who Should My Team Protect In The Expansion Draft: Part 6

August 12, 2016, 11:46 AM ET [82 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
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

You can find part five of this series that focused on Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Jose and St. Louis here


Today will focus on the final five teams left in this exercise. We will be looking at Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, and Winnipeg. We will start with the team that looks to be in the worse shape out of these five.

Tampa Bay

As it stands right now no movement clauses are going to hit this team very hard. Both Ryan Callahan and Valtteri Filppulahave no movement clauses and this is problematic considering how many quality forwards need protecting on this team. On defense they will be fine because whatever quality forward Tampa Bay leaves exposed is going to be taken.

Forwards: Steven Stamkos (NMC), Ryan Callahan (NMC), Valtteri Filppula (NMC), Nikita Kucherov, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Jonathan Drouin

Defense: Victor Hedman (NMC), Anton Stralman, Slater Koekkoek

Goalie: Andrei Vasilevskiy

Available to Las Vegas: Alex Killorn, Vladislav Namestnikov, Cedric Paquette, Braydon Coburn, Jason Garrison, Andrej Sustr, Nikita Nesterov

Let's be honest here the only name that matters is Alex Killorn. Unless the Lightning find a taker for Ryan Callahan or Valtteri Filppula they are going to lose Killorn. At this moment the Lightning are going to lose a good forward. Welcome to Las Vegas Alex.

Toronto

Most of Toronto's valuable assets do not need protecting. They will make out fine in the expansion draft. They have a few veteran guys they can leave unprotected and not miss a beat because the younger replacements will be better and cheaper.

Forwards: Nazem Kadri, James van Riemsdyk, Leo Komarov, Kerby Rychel, Connor Brown, Brendan Leipsic, Josh Leivo

Defense: Jake Gardiner, Morgain Reilly, Connor Carrick

Goalie: Frederick Andersen

Available to Las Vegas: Joffrey Lupul, Tyler Bozak, Peter Holland, Martin Marincin

This team is in the midst of a full rebuild and that was affirmed by their #1 overall selection in the 2016 NHL draft. Keep the youth around at the expense of one of the older forwards. Las Vegas isn't going to have a ton of great forward options. Maybe they'll take Lupul's contract of Toronto's hands.

Vancouver

There isn't a ton here. Most of their best players are aging and more of their middle tiered players are bad value. Jim Benning has done a number on this franchise. Given this fact I don't foresee Vancouver losing anything of significance. You can't lose what you don't have.

Forwards: Henrik Sedin (NMC), Daniel Sedin (NMC), Loui Eriksson, Jannik Hansen, Sven Baertschi, Bo Horvat, Brendan Gaunce

Defense: Alexander Edler, Christopher Tanev, Erik Gudbranson

Goalie: Jacob Markstrom

Available to Las Vegas: Brandon Sutter, Derek Dorsett, Markus Granlund, Emerson Etem

The Canucks will be protecting Brandon Sutter in real life even though the contract is terrible and Las Vegas would probably take him. There isn't much to be had for Las Vegas when it comes to Vancouver. All four of those players has a fourth line possession impact or worse.



Washington

The Capitals have a lot of talent on their roster but given the Oshie,Williams and Alzner are UFA's this opens up some protection slots to keep Las Vegas from getting their hands on more talent. Surprsingly enough the Capitals do not have any no movement clauses and can do whatever they want here.

Forwards: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Marcus Johansson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky, Lars Eller, Brett Connolly

Defense: John Carlson, Matt Niskanen, Dmitri Orlov

Goalie: Brayden Holtby

Available to Las Vegas: Tom Wilson Jay Beagle, Brooks Orpik, Philipp Grubauer

Nothing here that Washington can't overcome. Las Vegas taking on Orpik's contract would be a godsend for the Capitals and offer them a reprieve on that short sighted decision.

Winnipeg

Winnipeg will probably have a better player than most exposed, but it shouldn't be a crippling blow to the franchise. All of their impact players will be protected and the mid tier prospects that may be left exposed are going to be leapfrogged by the upper end prospects who are not eligible for the expansion draft. Due to the wealth of great forward depth at the prospect level I will be using the 4F/4D approach.

Forwards: Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Bryan Little, Mathieu Perreault

Defense: Tobias Enstrom (NMC), Dustin Byfuglien (NMC), Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers

Goalie: Connor Hellebuyck

Available to Las Vegas: Alexander Burmistrov, Marko Dano Shawn Matthias, Michael Hutchinson

Do I think Tyler Myers is a great player? Not really but when I look at the Jets franchise I don't see a ton of defense depth so I don't feel like they should be just giving away a guy who can log a decent amount of NHL minutes for them. Let's face it any forward the Jets lose here will be easily replaced in both the short and long term by solid prospects like Patrik Laine, Nikolaj Ehlers, Kyle Connor, and Nicolas Petan. Losing a player like Marko Dano for nothing becomes an easier pill to swallow when you factor in those other prospects.

So that concludes the portion of this series which outlines what each team is facing in next year's expansion draft. The final installment of this series will come on Monday and that will consist of me drafting for Las Vegas based on all the available players from this exercise.

Thanks for reading!
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