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Quick Hits: Expansion Draft, Entry Draft, a Flyers Pilgrimage

July 12, 2021, 12:31 PM ET [71 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Quick Hits: July 12, 2021

1) Yesterday, I completed my annual mock NHL Entry Draft for the Philadelphia Flyers website. It clocks in just shy of 8,000 words. If it works out that the Flyers trade their 2021 first-round pick beforehand or otherwise move down (or, less likely, up) in the first round at least 24 hours ahead of the opening of the Draft, I will edit the piece to make it up to date.

As of right now, the odds of the Flyers keeping vs. trading their 2021 first-rounder are said to be essentially 50-50. More and more, it sounds as if at least one of the two highly touted goalie prospects available in this year's Draft -- Jesper Wallstedt and/or Sebastian Cossa -- will be off the board before the Flyers' pick at 13th.

In my own mock draft, I projected Wallstedt going in the top 10 and Cossa within the top 20. The reason for this: As dominant as Cossa was this past season and as intriguing as his tools are (6-foot-6 and 210-pound frame, high-end puckhandling ability), I was a little gun-shy about putting him in the top 12 to 15 simply because he played a very limited sample size of games played (19) due the WHL's belated and shortened schedule. He also played for an Edmonton Oil Kings team that has been dominant in recent years pretty much no matter who has been in goal. Predecessors Dylan Miskiw (now playing Canadian collegiate hockey) and Beck Warm (now in the American Hockey League) also both had very good stats for Edmonton, although not to the same level as Wallstedt.

Given the notorious uncertainty of post-Draft development for goalies and how closely tied team play/goalie play are, I ranked Cossa conservatively. From what I'm hearing, though, Cossa and Wallstedt could both be off the board before Philly's first pick comes up. If not, the Flyers' BPA might be one of the goalies or they might trade down a few spots. We shall see.

In my mock draft, for whatever it's worth (not much), I had the Flyers taking Cole Sillinger at the 13th spot. The reasoning will be explained in the article.

2) The following is reposted from my May 13 blog. With the NHL Expansion Draft coming up next Wednesday, I figured it was worth the repost. If the Flyers make any significant trades before the player protection/exposure list must be submitted on the 17th, I will revisit the projections on which players I think will be protected or exposed.

The 2021 National Hockey League expansion draft will take place on July 21, 2021. With the exception of the Vegas Golden Knights (who remain exempt from losing a player although the franchise has now been around for four seasons and has the depth to withstand it), every team in the NHL will lose one unprotected player and one player only to the Seattle Kraken.

For the Flyers, the team need not protect players who were first-year or second-year pros in 2020-21 as they are exempt from the expansion draft. The list of exempt players include Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost, Cam York, Tyson Foerster, Egor Zamula, Zayde Wisdom, Wade Allison and Tanner Laczynski.

On the flip side, the Flyers MUST expose a goaltender who meets the expansion draft eligibility criteria (under contract for 2021-22 or a restricted free agent who has received a qualifying offer). The Flyers will protect Carter Hart, who is an impending RFA. Felix Sandström is eligible to be exposed to the draft. Unrestricted free agents cannot be exposed to the draft. As such, the Flyers could not expose Brian Elliott or Alex Lyon (unless they were resigned to a new contract).

The Flyers MUST protect any player with a no-movement clause in his contract unless the player agrees to waive his NMC. There are two such players on the roster: Claude Giroux and Kevin Hayes.

As with the last expansion draft with Vegas, it is allowable for teams to strike deals with Seattle to take a specific player off their unprotected list, refrain from taking a certain unprotected player or take a certain player from another team's list and flip their contract immediately in a trade with your club. Doing so typically involves adding "sweeteners" to the deal, usually in the form of trading high-end draft pick(s) or prospect(s).

When Chuck Fletcher was the general manager of the Minnesota Wild, he got involved in such an arrangement with Vegas in the 2017 expansion draft. Minnesota Wild traded former 1st round pick Alex Tuch to Vegas in exchange for Vegas selecting Erik Haula in the expansion draft. Minnesota received a conditional third-round pick in the 2018 draft; a selection used on Connor Dewar, who has played the last two seasons in the AHL for the Iowa Wild.

The arrangement proved to be lopsided in favor of Vegas, as many of their deals did. Haula had an excellent season in 2017-18 for the eventual Western Conference champion Golden Knights. The next offseason, Vegas traded Haula to Carolina in the deal that brought Nicolas Roy to Vegas. In the meantime, Tuch is still with Vegas and posted his first NHL 20-goal season in 2018-19, scored eight playoff goals last season and produced an 18-goal, 33-point season for Vegas this year.

Fletcher has said that he learned a lesson from the 2017 expansion draft experience. Back in that draft, the Flyers lost fourth-line forward Pierre-Edourd Bellemare to Vegas. Shortly before the draft, the team traded Nick Cousins (who was not going to be protected) and Harvard goalie Merrick Madsen to the Arizona Coyotes for University of Michigan forward Brendan Warren and a fifth-round pick in the 2018 draft (defenseman Wyatte Wylie, now with the AHL's Lehigh Valley Phantoms).

There are many different strategies that the Flyers can employ in preparing their protection list. One is try to free up cap space by dangling multiple high-price veterans with term remaining on their contracts, while protecting younger players. Another would be to react to which younger players had disappointing seasons in 2020-21 and leave some of these players exposed.

If it were my choice, my strategy would be to expose multiple veterans who are good NHL players but whose contracts have high cap hits and two or more seasons of term remaining. I would NOT add any sweeters to Seattle as an incentive. They have to at least get to the cap floor (combined $60.2 million) and they also have to try to ice a competitive team. As such, my stance would be, "Here's our list. Take whatever player you want, and that's it."

My protection list would be as follows:

Seven forwards: Claude Giroux (NMC), Kevin Hayes (NMC), Sean Couturier, Travis Konecny, Scott Laughton, Oskar Lindblom, and Nolan Patrick.

Three defensemen: Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim (RFA), Phil Myers.

One goaltender: Carter Hart (RFA).

The unprotected list would include all of the following: Jakub Voracek, James van Riemsdyk, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Braun, Robert Hägg and Felix Sandström (RFA, first year of ELC was burned while on loan to HV71 in the SHL).

In terms of salary considerations, here is the relevant information:

Voracek: three seasons of remaining term, $8.25 million AAV, real-dollar salaries of $7.5 million in 2021-22, $6.25 million in 2022-23 ($5 million signing bonus installment on July 1, 2022, $1.25 million salary for the season), $7.5 million in 2023-24.

JVR: two seasons of remaining term, $7 million AAV, real dollar salaries of $7 million in 2021-22 ($1 million signing bonus installment this summer, $6 million for the season), and $5 million in 2022-23 ($1 million signing bonus installment on July 1, 2022, $4 million for the season).

Gostisbehere: two seasons of remaining term, $4.5 million AAV, real dollar salaries of $3.25 million in 2021-22 ($2.25 million signing bonus installment due this summer then $1 million base salary for the season), and $3.25 million in 2022-23 ($2.25 million signing bonus installment due on July 1, 2022, $1 million base salary for the season).

Aube-Kubel: One season of remaining term, then an arbitration-eligible RFA in the summer of 2022. His remaining contract will pay him $1.225 milion next season but his cap hit will be $1.075 million.

Braun: One season of remaining term, then a UFA. His real-dollar salary and cap hit for next season are $1.8 million.

Hägg: One season of remaining term, then a UFA. His cap hit for 2021-22 will be $1.6 million but his real-dollar salary will be $1.7 million.

It is likely that Seattle general manager Ron Francis will be agreeable to giving the Flyers the option of having the select any of the three highest-salaried players (Voracek, van Riemsdyk or Ghost) if the Flyers incentivize it with draft picks. I would not do that if I were Fletcher.

Voracek, for all the heat he takes, is still a productive NHL point-producer and one of the better playmaking wingers around. He had arguably his best NHL two-way season in 2019-20 but took a step backwards overall in that area in 2020-21. His remaining term and cap hit may push him out of being selected with no sweeteners unless Seattle is especially enamored with the idea of adding him to their inaugural roster.

I could, however, see Seattle taking van Riemsdyk, even without sweeteners. JVR is coming off a pretty solid all-around season even after his torrid early goal-scoring pace gave way to a lengthy goal drought. He has one less year of term left than Voracek, can step right on their top power play unit, has a favorable remaining real dollar vs AAV salary structure, is a good fit in any locker room dynamic and had one his better NHL seasons in terms of the details of his game (play-making, puck handling, two-way play, and even in terms of playing a more physical brand of hockey than his reputation suggests). His stock in trade will always be scoring deflection, rebound and slam-dunk goals near the net, especially on the power play, but it is inaccurate to call JVR strictly one dimensional based on his play this season.

Although the Flyers were unable to trade Gostisbehere last offseason and he passed through waivers unclaimed this season, he is still a prime candidate to be selected by Seattle. He is coming off a decent season overall when healthy and in the lineup.

3) A Flyers fan by the name of John McLean, a native of Barrie, Ontario, is planning a Flyers-themed pilgrimage across Canada; zigzagging the country from Ontario to Smithers, British Columbia (home of the Watson brothers and Ron Flockhart) and visiting as many places of Flyers-related note and player hometowns as he can manage during the journey. John will be keeping a blog of his trip and taking photos throughout. It sounds like an awesome trip and I am looking forward to seeing the photos he takes.

4) Belated happy birthday wishes (July 11) go out to Hockey Hall of Fame and Flyers Hall of Fame member Bill Barber.
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