Las Vegas Hockey: The Expansion Draft Key
A lot of the 2017 Expansion Draft will be a success or a failure for Las Vegas Hockey depending on how well George McPhee and staff can take advantage of overstocked teams. The activities of the scouting and player development sections of the budding organization will be all about getting the most bang for owner Bill Foley’s buck.
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There will be a lot of challenges tied to high expectations when McPhee and Foley sit down on the Expansion Draft Day, starting with the timing. From the NHL announcement of the expansion draft:
The 30 NHL Clubs must submit their Protection List by 5:00 P.M. ET on Saturday, June 17, 2017. The Las Vegas team must submit their Expansion Draft Selections by 5:00 P.M. ET on June 20 and the announcement of their selections will be released on made on June 21.
Las Vegas will have three days to mull what is and is not available from 30 teams, and make their choices. But the choices are not just straight up “who is the best players for us.” There are a much more loaded set of requirements placed on the Las Vegas Hockey Franchise. Again, from the NHL:
Regulations Relating to Expansion Franchise* The Las Vegas franchise must select one player from each presently existing club for a total of 30 players (not including additional players who may be acquired as the result of violations of the Expansion Draft rules).* The Las Vegas franchise must select the following number of players at each position: 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goaltenders.* The Las Vegas franchise must select a minimum of 20 players who are under contract for the 2017-18 season.* The Las Vegas franchise must select players with an aggregate Expansion Draft value that is between 60-100% of the prior season’s upper limit for the salary cap.* The Las Vegas franchise may not buy out any of the players selected in the Expansion Draft earlier than the summer following its first season.
A huge reason a lot of smart people are expecting a strong roster to come out of the initial draft are those rules. During the last expansion with the Columbus Bluejackets and Minnesota Wild, 26 teams (Atlanta and Nashville were exempt from drafting since they were such new franchises) could protect either
- 1 goaltender
- 5 defensemen
- 9 forwards
or
- 2 goaltenders
- 3 defensemen
- 7 forwards
Or 12-15 roster players instead of the 9-11 players for the 2017 draft. Plus it is only Las Vegas drafting instead of two teams.
This is the grand opportunity. More teams have their rosters open. More players on each roster will be unprotected. There will be no competition from another expansion franchise. The level of talent available to Las Vegas should be much higher than any expansion NHL franchise has ever seen before.
But wait, it’s not necessarily that easy. The two parts that complicate the equation, and that will cause a lot of debate and sleepless night in June, are those pesky rules on roster spots and salary cap. The last set of NHL expansions ended up with roster salaries in the $10-$17 million range. Las Vegas Hockey must spend between $43 million and $71 million on those 30 drafted players.
You may end up being forced to draft an over-the-hill defenseman with a bloated contract over a better forward simply to make the numbers balance.
And then of course Las Vegas Hockey will have to draft 3 goalkeepers, 9 defensemen and 13 forwards. Like all other drafts, some choices will seem obvious, but some serious work is going to have to be done to make sure the mix of wage/roster spot meets the requirement. You may end up being forced to draft an over-the-hill defenseman with a bloated contract over a better forward simply to make the numbers balance.
And you have to be willing to stick with your picks. McPhee will be unable to buy out a player’s contract until after the first season. So everybody needs to pray hard that everybody works out.
The best part of the question comes from how deep the development squads are for NHL teams. The rosters McPhee will be looking at will be second or third liners. But some teams have an embarrassment of riches in their development pipelines. Frankly, some teams are overstocked in their total rosters. One example is the Arizona Coyotes. They have a decent slate of forwards now, but also a number of young forwards on the brink of becoming impact players on the big team. Some teams might be eager to leave a veteran available on the Expansion draft, since they have several promising youngsters ready to step up onto the big stage. Other teams may leave a young talent exposed, allowing McPhee to swoop in to capture some promising young talent a year or two away from the NHL.
Which is why there is going to be more than just basic scouting involved in the coming months. George McPhee’s drafting task may have much more potential than expansions past, but it will also be much more challenging to identify the best bets to fit into the Expansion Draft roster.