This summer, rumors of potential NHL expansion are reaching a high point. As expansion appears to become a distinct possibility, as part of Insider's 2013-14 NHL preseason coverage, we're running a mock expansion draft. If the NHL were to expand instead of relocate for its next new team -- be it in Seattle, Quebec City or elsewhere -- by what rules would the expansion draft be bound, which players would be protected and which players (out of the unprotected) would the new teams select?
Over the next three days, we're running through the answers to all of those questions, with the help of Insiders Craig Custance and former assistant GM Frank Provenzano, starting with the protected lists. Wednesday, Provenzano breaks down the Western Conference -- which players teams would protect and the thought process behind those decisions.
On Tuesday, my colleague (and fellow expansion team GM) Craig Custance ran through his list of protected players for teams in the East. Likewise, I was tasked with coming up with a list of protected players for teams in the West, and what follows are those selections along with my analysis, including which decisions gave me particular trouble.
For those who want to refresh themselves on the rules of this expansion draft, there's a full rules breakdown found here, but here's a brief summary:
Teams that protect one goalie are allowed to keep five defensemen and nine forwards. Teams that protect two goalies can keep only three defensemen and seven forwards. In the two-goalie scenario, teams must expose a third goalie who played either six games last season or 20 in the previous two seasons. As you'll see below, that becomes an important distinction.
All players with a no-move clause active for the current season are automatically on a team's protected list.
Teams must expose one defenseman and two forwards who played either 23 games last season or a total of 55 games the previous two seasons.
The following players are exempt from the draft: All first- and second-year professionals and all unsigned draft choices. So if you notice a key, young player on a team not protected, chances are he's exempt.
We ran through this exercise using the current NHL rosters. If an expansion like this were coming down the pike, it's likely that teams would make some additions that would help to protect them from exposing key veterans.
Note: A full list of the unprotected players -- the pool from which we'll be drafting -- will be published along with Thursday's draft results, although I do mention a number of the prominent unprotected players in the notes below.
The protected lists: Western Conference
F: Ryan Getzlaf (NMC), Corey Perry (NMC), Saku Koivu (NMC), Teemu Selanne (NMC), Andrew Cogliano, Daniel Winnik, Kyle Palmieri, Matt Beleskey, Dustin Penner
D: Sheldon Souray (NMC), Francois Beachemin (NMC), Cam Fowler, Luca Sbisa, Ben Lovejoy
G: Jonas Hiller
Notes: Not many tough calls here. The core players were easily protectable, and the players satisfying the experience requirement will not have a significant negative impact if they are lost in the draft. Two notable players exempted are forward Peter Holland and netminder Viktor Fasth.
F: Curtis Glencross (NMC), Mikael Backlund, Mike Cammalleri, Jiri Hudler, David Jones, T.J. Galiardi, Tim Jackman, Matt Stajan
D: Mark Giordano (NMC), Dennis Wideman (NMC), T.J. Brodie, Chris Butler, Shane O'Brien
G: Karri Ramo
Notes: The rebuilding Flames had to decide which forward to expose to satisfy the experience requirement. It came down to Stajan (2013-14 salary of $2.5 million) versus Lee Stempniak (2013-14 salary of $2.75 million). Though both players are potential unrestricted free agents next summer, Calgary decided to keep Stajan and expose Stempniak, since Stajan can play center on this talent-thin Flames roster. Exciting young prospect Sven Baertschi was exempt.
F: Michal Handzus (NMC), Patrick Sharp (NMC), Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Bryan Bickell, Marcus Kruger, Ben Smith
D: Duncan Keith (NMC), Michal Rozsival (NMC), Brent Seabrook, Nick Leddy, Niklas Hjalmarsson
Notes: Chicago was faced with a difficult decision regarding its blue-line corps, as Rozsival's no-movement clause took up a spot on the Hawks' protected list. Keith and Seabrook are automatics on the reserve list. That left Leddy, Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya as Chicago regulars who would need to be protected. Despite his considerable contribution to Chicago's Cup victory in June, Chicago chose to expose the 31-year-old Oduya over Hjalmarsson (26) and Leddy (22). The Blackhawks had three notable exemptions in Jimmy Hayes, Brandon Saad and Andrew Shaw.
F: Matt Duchene, Ryan O'Reilly, Pierre Parenteau, Paul Stastny, Alex Tanguay, Steve Downie, Jamie McGinn, Cody McLoed, Tomas Vincour
D: Cory Sarich (NMC), Erik Johnson, Jan Hejda, Ryan Wilson, Matt Hunwick
G: Jean-Sebastien Giguere (NMC)
Notes: Giguere's no-movement clause automatically put him on Colorado's protected list. This meant that, in order to protect Semyon Varlamov, Colorado had to make available a goaltender who had either played six NHL games in 2013 or 20 NHL games combined in 2011-12 and 2013. The problem is that the only goaltender who met the criteria in Colorado's system other than Giguere was Varlamov. While that was a disappointing development -- and if these rules applied in real life, the Avs might scoop up a veteran free agent to sacrifice to the draft -- they do have the benefit of exemptions for Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon.
F: Ray Whitney (NMC), Jamie Benn, Shawn Horcoff, Rich Peverley, Tyler Seguin, Erik Cole, Cody Eakin, Vernon Fiddler, Lane MacDermid
D: Sergei Gonchar (NMC), Alex Goligoski, Trevor Daley, Kevin Connauton, Cameron Gaunce
Notes: Dallas was faced with the decision on whether to protect a 36-year-old potential UFA defenseman this summer in Stephane Robidas, or to use those spots to keep two young defensemen (Connauton and Gaunce) that it acquired last season at the trade-deadline selling spree but who have yet to make an impact at the NHL level. Dallas remained committed to its youth movement, and made Robidas available. The Stars received exemptions for Jordie Benn, Alex Chiasson, Brenden Dillon and Valeri Nichushkin.
F: Jordan Eberle, Sam Gagner, Boyd Gordon, Taylor Hall, Ales Hemsky, David Perron, Mike Brown, Jesse Joensuu, Ryan Jones
D: Andrew Ference (NMC), Ladislav Smid, Jeff Petry, Nick Schultz, Philip Larsen
G: Devan Dubnyk
Notes: Edmonton's young core of players presented a unique problem -- finding enough players to satisfy the experience criteria. They did with this with veteran Ryan Smyth and depth players Ben Eager and Corey Potter. The Oilers will not be significantly impacted by expansion, and among their notable exemptions are Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov and Justin Schultz.
F: Anze Kopitar, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown, Kyle Clifford, Matt Frattin, Dwight King, Jarret Stoll, Justin Williams
D: Drew Doughty, Slava Voynov, Jake Muzzin, Willie Mitchell, Robyn Regehr
Notes: Los Angeles is a very good team top to bottom, patiently built over time with a good core, complementary players and good depth (and, perhaps most impressive, not a single no-movement clause on its roster). The Kings will lose some of that quality depth in this expansion draft.
F: Zach Parise (NMC), Dany Heatley (NMC), Mikko Koivu (NMC), Jason Pominville (NMC), Matt Cooke, Kyle Brodziak, Torrey Mitchell
D: Ryan Suter (NMC), Jared Spurgeon, Marco Scandella, Clayton Stoner, Keith Ballard
G: Niklas Backstrom (NMC)
Notes: The Wild have pursued an aggressive strategy in unrestricted free agency in the past few offseasons in an attempt to improve their roster. One of the downsides of such a strategy is that they have their fair share of no-movement clauses on the protected list. This prevented them from exposing some contracts that they might like to get out from under, such as Heatley, and forced them to expose some of their bottom-end grit (Mike Rupp and Zenon Konopka) in order to satisfy the experience requirement.
On the other hand, they did get a fair number of exemptions, given the youth on the roster, with Jonas Brodin, Charlie Coyle, Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Nate Prosser and Jason Zucker on that list.
F: Mike Fisher (NMC), Patric Hornqvist, David Legwand, Eric Nystrom, Viktor Stalberg, Colin Wilson, Matt Cullen, Gabriel Bourque, Matt Hendricks
D: Shea Weber, Roman Josi, Kevin Klein
G: Pekka Rinne (NMC)
Notes: Nashville didn't have huge expansion protection issues, but it did have to decide which bottom-end forward to expose in addition to Paul Gaustad (2013-14 salary of $3 million). It came down to Nick Spaling or Hendricks. The protected spot went to Hendricks, who the Predators signed this summer to a four-year, $7.4 million contract. Ryan Ellis, Filip Forsberg and 2013 No. 4 overall pick Seth Jones were exemptions.
F: Mike Ribeiro (NMC), Shane Doan (NMC), Martin Hanzal, Lauri Korpikoski, David Moss, Antoine Vermette, Radim Vrbata, Mikkel Boedker, Kyle Chipchura
D: Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Keith Yandle, Zbynek Michalek, Michael Stone, David Schlemko
G: Mike Smith (NMC)
Notes: Phoenix was faced with which defensemen to protect, as the Coyotes had to decide between Stone (23), Schlemko (26), Derek Morris (35) and Rostislav Klesla (31). Phoenix ultimately went with youth and exposed the older, more expensive and potential 2014 UFAs Morris and Klesla. Phoenix also placed a good portion of its social media relevance at risk by exposing Paul Bissonnette, who balanced the 5:25 of ice time he averaged in 2013 with his 455,000 followers on Twitter. Andy Miele was the lone notable exemption.
F: Joe Thornton (NMC), Patrick Marleau (NMC), Martin Havlat (NMC), Brent Burns, Logan Couture, Tyler Kennedy, Joe Pavelski, Raffi Torres, Tommy Wingels
D: Dan Boyle, Matt Irwin, Brad Stuart, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Justin Braun
G: Antti Niemi
Notes: The Sharks ran out of protection room on defense, and had to finagle a solution from Irwin, Jason Demers and Braun. The Sharks elected to expose Demers, as Braun and Irwin are both signed through the 2014-15 season to contracts that have minimal salary-cap implications. This is an important consideration, as San Jose needs to keep an eye on the cap in the event that it decides to re-sign (or replace) the expiring contracts of Thornton, Marleau and Boyle.
Despite the fact Demers only accounts for a cap hit of $1.5 million, he also presents a potential salary-arbitration risk in the event that his minutes get closer to the 20:00 minutes per game threshold that he was approaching during the 2010-11 season.
F: David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Patrik Berglund, Alex Steen, Chris Stewart, Vladimir Sobotka, Derek Roy, Magnus Paajarvi, Maxim Lapierre
D: Jay Bouwmeester, Kevin Shattenkirk, Alex Pietrangelo, Roman Polak, Barret Jackman
G: Jake Allen
Notes: The Blues had perhaps the most difficult protection decisions to make of any team in the NHL, as they are currently a legitimate Stanley Cup contender that was built through years of patient drafting and development. Young exemptions Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko are examples of that.
St. Louis has three goaltenders who are expansion eligible in Allen, Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak. Allen is the goalie of the future. Elliot and Halak are one of the best tandems in the NHL, but both players are potential UFAs next summer.
If the Blues protect two goaltenders, they lose two protection spots on defense and would have to expose both Polak and Jackman, with no guarantee that either Elliott or Halak would stay with the team following the 2013-14 season. If they expose Allen, they would potentially have to replace their entire netminding group next summer. In the end, the Blues decided to manage their longer-term risk, exposing both of their current starters with the knowledge that they could lose only one of them in expansion.
F: Daniel Sedin (NMC), Henrik Sedin (NMC), Alex Burrows, Jannik Hansen, Ryan Kesler, Jordan Schroeder, Chris Higgins, Brad Richardson, Dale Weise
D: Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Jason Garrison, Dan Hamhuis, Chris Tanev
Notes: Vancouver is a team that perennially operates at the upper margins of the salary-cap atmosphere, and they are using the expansion draft to try to shed the salary of David Booth (cap hit of $4.25 million). The Canucks currently have about $21 million in cap space next summer to fill nine roster spots, but two of those are potentially going to be occupied by the new contracts of the Sedin twins.
F: Evander Kane, Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, Devin Setoguchi, Jim Slater, Eric Tangradi, Blake Wheeler, James Wright, Michael Frolik
D: Tobias Enstrom, Zach Bogosian (NMC), Dustin Byfuglien, Grant Clitsome, Paul Postma
Notes: The Jets are hoping to take the next step and become a playoff team in 2013-14 after making a hard push to get into the postseason in 2013. Part of that plan involves exposing 34-year-old Olli Jokinen and his $4.5 million salary. Jokinen seems to be a playoff bad-luck charm. Of the 1,093 NHL games he has played in his career, only six (0.5 percent) have been playoff games. Winnipeg has also exposed former first-round pick (No. 8 overall) Alex Burmistrov, who has bolted to the KHL after only three seasons in North America. Winnipeg's notable exemptions include Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba.