Vegas Golden Knights Expansion Outlook: Tampa Bay Lightning
Vegas Golden Knights will gain a talented Forward from the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft will bring excitement to the new fan base. Finding out what players fans will buy jerseys of, what kinds of trades does Vegas have in store and more. But when it comes to the Tampa Bay Lightning, all they’ll care about is keeping their top talent and they’ll do just that.
Tampa sits in 5th place in the Atlantic division and four points behind Toronto for the final playoff spot. This team is too talented to be sitting on the sidelines before playoff time. However with the amount of injuries that has taken place on the big league roster, it’s not too surprising where they stand.
When it comes to the expansion draft, most of the Lightning’s young up and coming players will not be exposed to Vegas. Players such as Matthew Peca, Brayden Point and Adam Erne are all exempt from the Golden Knights expansion draft.
Tampa Bay Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman will 100% go with the seven Forwards, three Defensemen and one Goalie scheme. Reason being is because if they decide to go the other route, the Lightning would expose too many quality forwards at the expansion draft.
The Bolts will for sure protect young budding Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. After trading Ben Bishop to LA, it seemed like this was a pure protection strategy for the 22-year-old. The Lightning also got back assets knowing they were not going to sign the unrestricted free agent back.
Vasilevskiy is 17-15-6 with a GAA of 2.64 and a .916 save percentage. The Russian born goaltender is now franchise’s number one goalie for now and beyond. Kristers Gudlevskis is the lone goaltender exposed to Vegas.
On the blue line, there is more rather easy picks for the Lighning’s protected list. Obviously Victor Hedman and Anton Stralman are the keepers, but who gets the last slot. Andrej Sustr is only 26 years old and has some young talent but he’s not having a great season. Tampa signed Jason Garrison to a big contract and he’s been a total bust. Neither deserve a spot but if I were Tampa GM Stevie Y, I’d say Sustr is the guy to keep.
At Forward there seems like there’s just enough protection slots for everybody Yzerman wants to keep. Steven Stamkos, Ryan Callahan, Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, Jonathan Drouin and Alex Killorn will round out Tampa’s keeper list. To keep a guy like Vladislav Namestnikov, Yzerman will have to either keep Killorn off the protection list or ask Callahan to waive his no movement clause.
Vegas Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee doesn’t have too many options besides a few. There’s no way he should take a chance and pick Garrison without receiving any compensation from the Lightning from that insane contract he carries.
With only one other choice really remaining, Vladislav Namestnikov is my bet to become a Golden Knight at the expansion draft. Namestnikov is a playmaker with a defense first mindset to his game. The 24-year-old Russian loves to play up-tempo, makes players around him better and can play Center or the Wing.
You’d like to see Namestnikov get on the score sheet more as he only has nine Goals, 15 Assists and 24 Points. The former first round pick needs to be more consistent offensively. He also needs to bulk up more in the offseason to withstand the wear and tear at the NHL level.
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If Namestnikov could find a consistent offensive game to go along with his two-way ability, McPhee could have himself a star. Obviously it’s hard to pinpoint if Namestnikov will be available to the Vegas Golden Knights at the expansion draft. But if he’s made available by Tampa, how could you say no to a player like Namestnikov?
Golden Knights Prediction: Vladislav Namestnikov