Jakob Chychrun, Arizona Coyotes (Photo by Pens through my lens, via Wikimedia)
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.
All teams except Vegas, who are exempt, have two options for protecting players.
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.
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?
In Raleigh, NC, the Canes face a significant conundrum. Their best defenseman Dougie Hamilton is an unrestricted free agent. In any other season, that would be a major topic of discussion. Any thought of resigning him will have to wait until after the expansion draft.
The bigger problem for Carolina is that they have four very good defensemen under contract and can only protect three. Who do they leave exposed? Brett Pesce, Brady Skjei, Jaccob Slavin, or Jake Gardiner. For now, Gardiner is the odd man out due to a big injury this year, but he is also the most offensively talented among the four.
Of course, Carolina could protect all four from the Seattle Kraken, but that could present even more problems. If they hold back the defensemen, then the Canes must expose forwards Nino Niederreiter and Vincent Trocheck.
Minnesota is in almost the same position as Carolina. Defensemen Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon, and Jonas Brodin all have no-movement clauses (NMC) and must be protected. That leaves Matt Dumba out in the cold. Unlike Carolina, the Wild have an out.
The answer isn’t protecting fewer forwards, either. Suter is 36-years-old. His contract runs through 2024-25 with an annual cap hit of almost $7.54M. The Seattle Kraken would be crazy to take on that albatross. Minnesota could ask him to waive the NMC, but that’s highly unlikely. Seattle could draft Suter and flip him for picks. Do the Wild want to take that gamble?
Wow, the Blues are loaded. They have lots of young talented forwards and not enough room to protect all of them. Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Brayden Schenn are givens. So among Zach Sanford, Sammy Blais, Ivan Barbashev, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Oskar Sundqvist, which four do they protect?
Keep in mind that aside from two players on the above list, St. Louis also has to leave David Perron and Kyle Clifford unprotected.
Among Blues’ blueliners, Justin Faulk and Torey Krug will be protected. That still leaves Colton Parayko, Marco Scandella, Vince Dunn, and Robert Bortuzzo. While the latter is a given for exposure, the other three are not.
Carolina, St. Louis, and Minnesota can’t protect all the talent they have. These next two teams don’t have enough players under contract. At this point, they must leave some of their stars exposed.
It’s very likely San Jose won’t protect defenseman Brent Burns. Both Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic have NMC’s. Burns, who turned 36 in March, has an $8M cap hit through 2025. As much as Burns is loved in the Bay Area, the Sharks could use that $8M windfall if the big blueliner gets drafted by the Kraken.
Unfortunately for the Sharks, they only have five forwards with contracts for next season, Logan Couture, Evander Kane, Timo Meier, Tomas Hertl, and Kevin Labanc. According to the rules, two forwards under contract in 2021-22 must be exposed.
That means Sharks GM Doug Wilson must add four more contracts either by trade or re-signing their own restricted free agents to keep his core. If not, Wilson had better be prepared to part with some high draft picks.
The Yotes have only two defensemen, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jakob Chychrun, signed for next season. Also, they have no pending restricted free agents, either. The front office needs to get busy or risk the possibility of losing Chychrun because OEL has a no-movement clause.
Maybe Arizona signs Niklas Hjalmarsson, Ilya Lyubushkin, Alex Goligoski, or Jordan Oesterle to extensions before the season. Then again, with at least nine blueliners headed to Seattle, the pending unrestricted free agents could wait to see what they’re worth on the open market.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.