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ESPN Senior Writer- Senior NHL writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Wrote for The Sporting News
This week at Insider, we ran an exercise in which two of our writers -- Craig Custance and Frank Provenzano -- went through the process that might take place if the NHL decided to expand with two new franchises. Craig provided his list of protected players in the East, and Frank did the same for the West.
For a full list of players available for selection, click here.
Below you'll find the final rosters for both squads, including salary-cap information and the rationale behind each GM's selections. But now, without further preamble, we give you the new franchises -- your Seattle Metropolitans and Quebec City Nordiques:
Seattle Metropolitans
GM Custance's take
We believe in Reimer
The Maple Leafs might not be sold on James Reimer as their No. 1 goalie but the Seattle expansion team believes he's a guy to build the franchise around. There were a number of more proven goaltenders available, including future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur and Stanley Cup winner Marc-Andre Fleury, but they couldn't lure us away from Reimer with the No. 1 overall pick. Reimer was the choice because he's still just 25 years old and signed to a very reasonable contract that comes with a cap hit of $1.8 million this season. He's a restricted free agent after this season, so we retain his rights. In the two seasons in which he was healthy and not recovering from a head injury he had a save percentage of .921 and .924. In seven playoff games against the Bruins, his save percentage was .923. Getting Semyon Varlamov as insurance doesn't hurt, either.
Burmistrov is worth the risk
Maybe we jumped the gun in grabbing Alex Burmistrov as our first forward considering he's not currently in North America and is instead playing in the KHL, but there just weren't a lot of other talented 21-year-old centers exposed in this draft. None, to be exact. He's still just three years removed from being the No. 8 overall pick in the NHL draft and already has 194 career games under his belt. It's a long-term play but maybe the opportunity to start fresh in a new city will convince Burmistrov to return after one season in the KHL. He may never reach the comparisons to Pavel Datsyuk heaped on him during his draft year, but he's still a player who projects as a future top-six center.
Building down the middle
Our forward picks early in the draft were built around centers in selecting guys like Nick Bonino, Gregory Campbell, Olli Jokinen and Paul Gaustad. We also had an eye on special teams in selecting those players, with Campbell and Gaustad headed for significant penalty-kill duty while Bonino can reprise his role on the Ducks' power play as a premier puck retriever with his new team. We expect a bounce-back season from Jokinen, who scored just seven goals last season but had a shooting percentage of 8.2 percent.
Bringing in championship pedigree
We targeted a pair of Bruins in Campbell and Adam McQuaid in part because we want some of the Boston team-first mentality brought into our dressing room. Alec Martinez was another player we liked because of his Stanley Cup winning experience. As a 24-year-old defenseman, he averaged 14:28 of ice time during 20 games of action in the Kings' Stanley Cup run. Adam Burish is a fantastic dressing room presence and was one of the many big personalities on the 2010 Stanley Cup winning Chicago Blackhawks.
A defense built to last
Our blue line is locked up for the foreseeable future. Nicklas Grossmann is signed through the 2015-16 season at a reasonable $3.5 million. Anton Volchenkov is also signed through the same season, although not at such a reasonable number. That's a slight concern. McQuaid has two years left on his deal and we think there's a lot of value in David Rundblad at $785K per season through 2014-15. We jumped on Rundblad early because he's a 22-year-old defenseman who has the added bonus of being a right-handed shot. It was a combination too hard to pass up.
Quebec City Nordiques
GM Provenzano's take
Overall strategy
Teams generally try to protect their skilled core players in an expansion draft, and this one was no different. It was clear to me that, with nine forward protection slots, there would be very few top-six forwards available (outside of salary dumps), and virtually no top-two centers available. Generally speaking, my objectives going into the expansion draft were to draft a team that would be competitive (since it was not going to be skilled), had some elements (outside of immediate on-ice success) to which the local fan base could connect and to avoid getting locked into long-term financial commitments in order to preserve future team-building flexibility.
My early draft strategy was to focus on defensemen, since the selection of a single defenseman or goaltender off a team eliminated all other available defensemen on that team for selection (sorry, Craig). I wanted to get a mix of quality, veteran defensemen and add some puck-moving ability. In adding veteran players, I also wanted to try to bring in players who have come from quality, winning organizations.
Early in the draft
After securing two veteran defensemen (Johnny Oduya and Stephane Robidas), I went for some two-way centers who could at least be qualified as top-nine, and tried to focus on players who have played in sound defensive systems (Nick Spaling and Trevor Lewis).
I addressed wingers later in the draft, since I wanted to first secure players at positions of scarcity (center and defense). I tried to get younger players who had performed at least at a top-nine level in the relatively recent past, and tried to avoid expensive, veteran players with long-term financial commitments.
Adding some muscle
I wanted to have a fourth line that would fit with the hard-working, competitive culture that we would try to establish early on, and selected those players (Zac Rinaldo, Jared Boll and Mike Rupp) before I had finished filling out the rest of the roster.
Targeting netminders
When Reimer went early, I deferred on selecting goaltenders until later in the draft, since I felt I could get two quality goaltenders later, provided the defensemen selected did not eliminate too many corresponding goaltending teammates.
The French Canadian connection
I felt it was important to add some French Canadian players who would connect with the fan base both as players and as people. Robidas certainly fits that bill, and bringing Brodeur back to his home province to finish his career will keep the local reporters busy.
[Editor's Note: It's come to our attention that Brodeur was an illegal pick -- Volchenkov had already been selected, and a team that loses a defenseman cannot also lose a goalie. We checked back in with GM Provenzano for his replacement pick No. 39 overall, and he takes... Anders Lindback. At a 2013-14 salary of $1,800,000 -- and just 25 years old -- he's a much better value for the Nordiques, and could develop into something more in the future].
And for those who want the rundown of our mock expansion draft picks in order, here we go:
1. Seattle - James Reimer
2. Quebec - Johnny Oduya
3. Quebec - Stephane Robidas
4. Seattle - David Rundblad
5. Seattle - Alex Burmistrov
6. Quebec - Nick Spaling
7. Quebec - Trevor Lewis
8. Seattle - Nicklas Grossmann
9. Seattle - Alec Martinez
10. Quebec - Nikita Nikitin
11. Quebec - Drew Miller
12. Seattle - Nick Bonino
13. Seattle - Adam McQuaid
14. Quebec - Eric Fehr
15. Quebec - Jason Demers
16. Seattle - Gregory Campbell
17. Seattle - Anton Volchenkov
18. Quebec - Matt D'Agostini
19. Quebec - Deryk Engelland
20. Seattle - Anton Stralman
21. Seattle -Olli Jokinen
22. Quebec - David Booth
23. Quebec - Erik Condra
24. Seattle - Paul Gaustad
25. Seattle - Lee Stempniak
26. Quebec - Scott Gomez
27. Quebec - Zac Rinaldo
28. Seattle - Ryan Malone
29. Seattle - Rene Bourque
30. Quebec - Mike Rupp
31. Quebec - Jared Boll
32. Seattle -Adam Burish
33. Seattle - Semyon Varlamov
34. Quebec - Brian Elliott
35. Quebec - Mikael Samuelsson
36. Seattle - Zack Smith
37. Seattle - Zenon Konopka
38. Quebec - Kris Russell
39. Quebec - Martin Brodeur Anders Lindback
40. Seattle - Jay Beagle
41. Seattle - Nikolai Kulemin
42. Quebec - John Mitchell