Seattle Kraken: 5 NHL teams poorly positioned for NHL expansion draft
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.
San Jose Sharks
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.
Arizona Coyotes
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.
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