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Recapping Our First Kraken Expansion Draft

December 14, 2020, 1:54 PM ET [11 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Seattle Kraken Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Good morning and a happy Monday to you TentaClan.

Sitting here at my home office with my first coffee of the day, I thought it would be a great idea to take a look back on our first Expansion Draft, re-explain some of the reasoning behind it, and do my best to answer everyone who messaged some form of the phrase "Thank God you aren't the one actually making the decisions here."

When the real Seattle Expansion Draft occurs, the team needs to draft at minimum 14 forwards, 9 defencemen, and 3 goalies. My first draft ended up drafting 17 forwards, 10 defencemen, and 3 goalies so checkmarks all round for me.

Once more, here is the final roster I drafted.

Bailey-Henrique-Johnson
Sanford-Strome-Hornqvist
Tierney-Compher-Kunin
Bennett-Blueger-Aube-Kubel
Lizotte-Nielsen-Merkley
Dahlen-x-Stenlund

Klefbom-Dumba
Dillon-Miller
Zadorov-Lauzon
Dermott-Fleury
Bean-Niku


Khudobin
Holtby
Hill

Is this a playoff team? No. Will it make it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in it's inaugural year? Probably not but no one would have said that about the Golden Knights team right after it was drafted either.

The rules that I outlined for this draft were overall quite basic and broad as there are many variables that still exist from team to team. The one area that very few of the submitted teams honored correctly was exposing the correct number of players.

Let's use the Toronto Maple Leafs as one example. Below is the protection list that was submitted.

FORWARDS

Auston Matthews - C
John Tavares (NMC) - C
Mitch Marner - RW
William Nylander - RW
Alex Kerfoot - C
Pierre Engvall - LW
Joey Anderson - RW

DEFENSE

Jake Muzzin
TJ Brodie
Morgan Rielly

GOALIE

Jack Campbell

Straight forward enough but as of today this list does not expose any forward requirements for the Expansion Draft. The requirements for forwards are as followed:

1.) Must be under contract in 21/22
2.) Played 40+ games in 20/21 or a combined 70+ games between 19/20 and 20/21.

This isn't the fault of anyone who submitted a list as many teams will be signing extensions or new players over the course of this season.

Thornton, Spezza, Simmonds, Hyman, and Vesey are the main roster players that are set to be free agents next season. RFA options like Nichlas Petan and Denis Malgin are unlikely to play the 40+ games they would need to.

This leaves the Leafs in a position where they need to extend or sign additional players in order to protect the names from this list. With the options available I selected Travis Dermott but other scenarios could mean Seattle selects someone like Alexander Kerfoot or even Zach Hyman if he is extended.

This is why I have said it will be curious to see how these lists change over the course of this season.

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ON WAITING TO SIGN PENDING UFA'S

Another conversation topic that came up frequently was the idea of players taking handshake agreements with their teams to wait until after Expansion to sign a contract.

An example; Ryan Nugent Hopkins is set to become a free agent at the end of this coming season. Ken Holland sits down the RNH and tells him in June that they will sign him to a 6 year 7 million dollar deal as soon as the Expansion Draft is complete. That way Edmonton can use one of their protection slots on someone else. Makes sense right?

Looking back at the Vegas Expansion Draft however, this same idea was brought up and did not happen across the league. The reason? Put yourselves in the same position with your own job in today's economic climate. If your employer asked you to wait until the end of the year to get a raise or guarantee you have your job next year how would you react?

For pending UFA's, this season they will be playing for a new contract and trying to earn as many dollars and additional years as they can and any number of X factors can stand in their way, from team struggles, to regression, to injuries.

Especially with a flat cap a shortened season, and revenue in question due to fans likely not being able to attend, players aren't going to feel confident in their GM's asking them to take a wait and see approach. If someone like Ryan Nugent Hopkins wants to stay with the Edmonton Oilers he is going to want to be extended sooner rather than later and you can't blame him for that.

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What's next for the Kraken blogs? We aren't going to jump right back into another expansion blog anytime soon but have no fear as there are plenty of ideas swirling in my head I want to get out for you all to read. Here are a few topics I look forward to covering over the next few months:

- Breaking down players that are likely to be exposed by each team
- Looking at the teams that are most likely to make a trade with Seattle
- Analyzing which UFA options next season could be signed by Seattle
- Taking a look at overseas options that could make their NHL debut in Seattle
- More tentacle themed puns

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I look forward to continuing to build up this fanbase with all of you here on HockeyBuzz.

Thanks for reading!
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