Galaxy Braining the Seattle Expansion Draft for Ottawa
The NHL season has 22 games left in it for the Ottawa Senators, but it is never too early to look ahead at how Pierre Dorion can scheme for Seattle’s expansion draft that is set for July 21, 2021.
The rules for the draft are essentially the same as when Vegas made their selections in 2017. The only limitation imposed is that Vegas has a special protection that excludes them from having to expose players. As ridiculous as that sounds given how the league propped Vegas up to succeed from the get-go, the Kraken will be required to draft 30 total players.
Of those 30, 20 players must be under contract for the 2021-22 season and those contracts must account for an aggregated cap value that must exceed the 60-percent threshold of the projected cap ceiling. Thanks to the flap cap system that was imposed under the new CBA, the league will preserve the $81.5 million cap ceiling until hockey-related revenue exceeds $3.3 billion for the previous season. In other words, the combined cap hit of the 20-plus players under contract that Seattle selects must account for at least $48.9 million.
The 30 teams can elect to protect seven forwards, three defencemen and one goalie or eight skaters (forwards/defencemen) and one goalie in accordance with the following conditions:
all players with no-movement clauses at the time of the draft, and who declines to waive those clauses, must be protected and will be counted toward their team’s applicable protection limits.
all first- and second-year NHL players, and all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection (and will not be counted toward protection limits).
All NHL teams must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the draft:
two forwards and one defenceman must be exposed who are under contract in 2021-22 and have played in 27-plus NHL games the prior season or at least 54 NHL games in the prior two seasons.
One goalie who is under contract in 2021-22 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to the 2021-22 season. If a team elects to make an RFA available to meet this requirement, that goalie must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the team’s protected list.
players with potential career-ending injuries, who have missed more than the previous 60 consecutive games (or who otherwise have been confirmed to have a career-threatening injury) may not be used to satisfy a team’s exposure requirements unless approval from the league is received. Such players may be deemed exempt from selection.
Teams will inevitably expose pending unrestricted free agents in the expansion draft. Seattle will have an exclusive 48-hour window to negotiate a contract extension with any of these impending free agents before the expansion draft. If Seattle can reach an agreement with a free agent, Seattle could then select that player from their previous team.
Provided that Seattle can meet the cap requirements using their selections, the Kraken can actually draft an unrestricted free agent without having any intent of signing that player. At the 2017 expansion draft, Vegas selected free agents like Jean-Francois Berube, Chris Thorburn and Connor Brickley to fulfill their obligation to draft one player per team. Each of these players was allowed to walk into unrestricted free agency.
In looking at the Senators’ roster, here is how it should unfold:
The Senators should protect eight skaters and one goaltender. Prior to yesterday’s Christian Wolanin trade, I would have advocated for protecting seven forwards and three defencemen. Once Wolanin was moved however, there simply is no need to protect any defenceman whose name is not Thomas Chabot. Artyom Zub is exempt from being selected and exposing players like Nikita Zaitsev and Josh Brown should not only be embraced, it should be encouraged.
With their forwards, things get a little spicier. Protecting Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson is a no-brainer. Nick Paul is cheap, has chipped in offensively and has had a sizable impact defensively. From where Paul has come, what he has had to endure and to come out the other side as an effective player, he warrants protection. Colin White is in the second year of his six-year, $28.5 million contract ($4.75M AAV). As much as I don’t like the escalating real cost of the last year of his deal ($6.25M), White has had a real nice bounce-back campaign. At this time last year, it would have been easy to wonder if it was in the organization’s best interests to buy his deal out before he reached 26 years of age. With what he has shown this season however, White has put off those concerns for another year. (Note: White turns 25 years old in January of 2022. The summer of 2022 will represent the last opportunity to buy him out at one-third of the remaining salary owed on the contract.) After this season, Connor Brown’s contract will cost the Senators $4-million in real dollars in each of the next two seasons. It is decent money, but for the two-way contributor, it’s not an offensive contract. As the Senators’ rebuild continues, Brown holds more value as a trade chip. The Senators will keep him.
After Connor Brown, the Senators are left with choices that can essentially go one of three ways. The Senators could elect to use their two remaining slots to: 1) protect two veterans; 2) protect two prospects; or 3) protect a veteran and a prospect.
Protecting two veteran forwards is problematic in the sense that to do so, the Senators are still required to expose two forwards who are under contract in 2021-22 and have fulfilled the games required thresholds that I outlined earlier in this post. In other words, in order to protect two forwards like Austin Watson, Evgenii Dadonov or Chris Tierney, the organization would have to sign Mike Amadio to an extension and expose him in the expansion draft.
If the Senators are trying to preserve competitiveness next season, I could envision the organization talking itself into protecting those veterans, but if I’m Pierre Dorion, I’m protecting Logan Brown and Vitaly Abramov.
For as damaging as it could possibly look exposing three players that the team signed during the 2020 offseason, I would rather see the organization protect inexpensive and young assets who have a chance to be better than some established third and fourth line alternatives.
The Kraken have assembled an analytically-inclined front office, so it makes sense for the Senators to protect whatever young upside it has. Protecting Logan Brown and Vitaly Abramov does that and essentially forces the Kraken into deciding whether it wants to draft one of Ottawa’s experienced players or roll the dice on whichever one of Ottawa’s goaltending prospects it doesn’t protect.
For the Senators, barring some unbelievable run of success by Filip Gustavsson, it makes sense to protect Joey Daccord. Admittedly, the optics in leaving Matt Murray exposed would be terrible. But, after signing Murray to a four-year contract and giving him an inflated average annual value of $6.25 million, it’s not like we needed an expansion draft to make that signing look bad. Statistically speaking, only Devan Dubnyk and Pekka Rinne have been worse over the past two seasons than Murray. Given his performance and contract, unless the Senators grease the wheels considerably and move some c future assets to the Kraken, there simply is no realistic scenario in which Murray is drafted by the Kraken.
If the Senators follow this blueprint, they will essentially protect the cheapest talent with the most unfulfilled upside. For an analytically-inclined front office like the Kraken’s, it essentially puts them in a position in which they: 1) punt the pick and select an unrestricted free agent off Ottawa’s roster; 2) roll the dice on an unproven goaltender like Filip Gustavsson or a Joey Daccord - who will miss the rest of the season due to injury; or 3) the Kraken take a reasonably sized contract off Ottawa’s books.
Perhaps the Kraken believe that a player like Evgenii Dadonov’s due for some regression because of some bad luck. Or maybe they take a player like Austin Watson off Ottawa’s hands because he is a veteran fourth liner who can play on the penalty kill. Maybe there’s a chance they take Chris Tierney believing that he’s a decent depth option who could return the organization a draft pick at the 2022 trade deadline. Or maybe they take Nikita Zaitsev believing that he can… okay, they’re definitely not taking Nikita Zaitsev.
The only reason the Senators should not deploy this strategy is because of their exhausted efforts to acquire players on more talented teams who would otherwise be left unprotected. During the Vegas draft, the Senators could have taken advantage of teams like Anaheim or Florida that simply did not have enough room to protect its players.
In Anaheim, the depth of its defence and a no-movement clause that meant Kevin Bieksa had to be protected meant that a valuable piece of its blue line would have to be moved. The team simply could not protect all of Bieksa, Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson, Cam Fowler and Sami Vatanen. As a workaround, Anaheim infamously dealt Shea Theodore to Vegas to ensure that the Golden Knights would not select Josh Manson or Sami Vatanen. In Florida, the Panthers exposed Jonathan Marchessault as part of an agreement for Vegas to take Reilly Smith’s contract off their hands.
Expansion should present a good opportunity for teams like Ottawa to look outside their organization and kick tires on teams that have an abundance of depth. Colorado stands out immediately for the simple fact that Erik Johnson has a no-movement clause. Cole Makar is guaranteed to be protected, but that means that one of Sam Girard or Devon Toews will be available. In Philadelphia, their list of protected forwards may not include a very good and young defensive forward like Nicolas Aubé-Kubel. Tampa likely will not be able to protect Erik Cernak, a 23-year old right defenceman. Toronto may find itself in the same boat with Justin Holl. Minnesota has to protect Jared Spurgeon, Ryan Suter and Jonas Brodin because of their no-movement clauses leaving Matt Dumba available. Depending on what happens with Dougie Hamilton working out a contract extension in Carolina, his future with the organization will have an impact on whether Jake Bean will be made available.
The possibilities are endless and it affords Pierre Dorion the opportunity to get creative and land some players that could push Ottawa into a more competitive team.
Recap of my protection list as it currently stands:
Skaters:
Brady Tkachuk
Drake Batherson
Nick Paul
Colin White
Connor Brown
Logan Brown
Vitaly Abramov
Thomas Chabot
Goaltender:
Joey Daccord