Vegas Golden Knights Expansion Outlook: Carolina Hurricanes
Vegas Golden Knights have a great idea who they may take from Carolina in the expansion draft.
The Vegas Golden Knights don’t have much to look forward to when picking from the Carolina Hurricanes. Carolina may sit in dead last in the Metropolitan division with 60 points but they’re a team on the rise. Players like Jeff Skinner, Sebastian Aho, Victor Rask Jaccob Slavin and Noah Hanifin will lead the Hurricanes for years to come.
All of the Hurricanes young talent like Aho, Slavin, Hanifin, Jake Bean are already exempt from the expansion draft. When I look at this Carolina roster, I see a bunch of good players the team will protect or already exempt from expansion. That leaves only the bottom six forwards and bottom pair defensemen left for the Golden Knights.
Hurricanes General Manager Ron Francis will most likely roll with the seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender protection list. With many key forwards to protect, this is the best choice for Francis and Carolina.
In goal, Francis will choose Cam Ward as his guy again next season. While Ward’s numbers aren’t sparkling, his play in net deserves high praise for what he’s been able to accomplish on an inferior team like Carolina. Ward is 21-20-8 with a 2.65 GAA and 904 save percentage. Eddie Lack will be the goaltender exposed by Carolina. Therefore, if I’m Vegas Golden Knights General Manger George McPhee I’d stay far away from Lack. That’s because out of all 60 NHL goaltenders and the minimum number of 10 games played, Lack is dead LAST in save percentage at .883.
On the blue line I expect Carolina to keep Justin Faulk, Ryan Murphy, and Klas Dahlbeck. All three defensemen are under the age of 25 and they all have their own unique abilities. Faulk is the number one guy in Carolina that logs the heavy minutes and plays in all situations. Ryan Murphy missed a ton of hockey this year due to injury, but he brings a strict offensive player on defense for the Hurricanes. Dahlbeck is a decent puck moving defenseman who has a big frame and reliable in his own end.
It’s also pretty easy who Carolina is going to protect at the forward position as well. Skinner, Rask, Elias Lindholm, Jordan Staal and Teuvo Teravainen are locks. Brock McGinn and Phillip Di Giuseppe should round-out the protection list for Carolina. If George McPhee see’s one of these two players exposed, he should waste little time in taking them.
The players that are going to be exposed for the Vegas Golden Knights is a very short list. Like I said, the Hurricanes won’t have much to offer the Golden Knights. McPhee will have to put his thinking cap on when picking from this roster.
The player that McPhee and Vegas fans should expect to pick is the Stockholm Sweden native Joakim Nordstrom. Nordstrom is versatile and can play either wing position. The 24-year old is also very polished and plays a responsible game. However, don’t expect Nordstrom to be putting up points because he’s not that type of player. In addition, his cap-hit for next season is only 1.75$ million dollars.
You won’t see many highlights like this one from Nordstrom. He needs to improve upon his offensive game obviously and bulking up at least another 10 more lbs. His stats this year aren’t the best due to being on a bottom six forward role. Nordstrom has three Goals and five Assists with eight Points on the year. That number is way down from last season when he got 24 Points.
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As a result, I see this is one of the few slam dunks at the expansion draft for the Vegas Golden Knights. Nordstrom is one of the few wingers in the game that have a great hockey sense and is very good defensively. All teams would love to have a player like this on their bottom six forward group. Fortunately for George McPhee and the Vegas Golden Knights, they’ll be able to get him for free at the expansion draft in June.
Golden Knights Prediction: Joakim Nordstrom