Seattle Kraken: 5 NHL teams poorly positioned for NHL expansion draft
When all the smoke from the fax machine at NHL Headquarters cleared on April 12, some teams were left in a poor position for the upcoming Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft.
The NHL trade deadline passed last week. While there were some pure “hockey trades,” NHL GMs had to consider the upcoming Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft when making deals. It was a tricky balancing act that likely isn’t over.
Expansion rules recap
All teams except Vegas, who are exempt, have two options for protecting players.
- Option 1: Protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goalie.
- Option 2: Protect eight skaters, in any combination of forwards or defensemen, and one goalie.
Teams must expose at least one defenseman, two forwards (who played at least 27 games in the prior year or 54 games in the two previous years), and one goalie under contract (goalies can be restricted free agents).
First and second-year players, in addition to unsigned draft choices, are exempt. Many young players are ineligible because they have not had enough NHL games in the last two years.
Just on the outside
Boston Bruins – On Defense, the B’s have to decide between veteran Matt Grzelcyk and young Jakub Zboril. Among the forwards, it’s between two talented players, Ondrej Kase and Trent Frederick, for the final protected forward. Seattle would do well with any of the four.
Tampa Bay Lightning – Looking at their 2021-22 payroll structure, the Bolts are in trouble. According to capfriendly.com, Tampa is already over the $81.5M cap at $85.02M. That total doesn’t include re-signing their restricted free agents and the backup goalie they need. If it were only as simple as just ditching a contract, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Now we get to the money issue. NHL Salary caps are based on the average annual value of a contract. In real money, Tampa Bay is paying much more. The Lightning have two players, Nikita Kucherov, Braydon Point, whose actual pay next season is at least $2.25M more than their cap hit and three more getting at least $1M over their AAV Yanni Gourde, Ryan McDonagh, and Andrei Vasilevsky.
Kudos to the Lightning and their creative accounting. Or at least they would be congratulated if they didn’t lose almost a year-and-a-half of in-person revenue. How long can they continue to lose that kind of money?