With the addition of the Las Vegas expansion team, there is a lot of chaos revolving around this upcoming season and how other teams will try to avoid losing key players to the Expansion Draft. General Managers will be keeping a close eye on what the other teams do for the next year and anticipate the players that Team Las Vegas will decide to snag. Teams can only option to protect two players out of their whole 23-man roster. Fortunately for them, players are protected by No-Movement clauses in their contracts, so they can rest easy considering most franchise players probably have that clause already. This does, however, leave a large window for young players such as Johnny Gaudreau or Aleksander Barkov to be picked up in the draft if they don't feel like making long term commitments to their teams. The expansion draft rules are:
Las Vegas must pick one player from each team. They must draft a player that has played in the NHL for at least three years and may not draft from any NHL affiliate teams.
The expansion team must contain 14 forwards, nine defensemen, and three goaltenders equaling at least 30 (unless they receive an extra player here and there for a team violating draft rules).
By the start of the 2017-2018 season, Vegas must have at least 20 signed by the start of the season.
The players must be signed to a contract that is 60 to 100 percent of last year's salary cap limit.
The expansion team may not buy out any player any time earlier than the summer prior to the 2017 season.
All NHL teams must have their Protection list submitted to the league by 5 p.m. ET June 17th, 2017. Las Vegas must have their draft selections submitted by 5 p.m. ET on June 20th with their official announce the following day.
What does this mean for young teams such as the Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames? Calgary is struggling to resign its play-makers over the off-season and may have to settle on giving up a couple to free agency if these salary disputes continue. Other teams may avoid signing them knowing that they could easily be snatched by Las Vegas the following year. This may be a time when you see teams such as Florida trade young guys with their last year on their contract coming up in hopes to receive a couple of picks and prospects. Many teams will leave their young guys in the AHL until the draft has ended or possibly even send them to play in a league over seas for the 2017 season. Who knows, but this will definitely be interesting to see how the franchises handle this fiasco.
