Sandwiching this episode between the Expansion Draft and NHL Draft left us with quite a bit to talk about. We break down Seattle’s selections and their lack of side deals. We also run down the players the Sabres will have under consideration at first overall but also at the top of the second round. We close up the show with a brief Jack Eichel update and a quick rundown of Thursday’s trades.
Listen to “The Instigator Podcast 9.31 – Expansion Draft and NHL Draft Breakdown” on Spreaker.
The benefit of Vegas and Seattle’s entry to the league (besides the $500 expansion fees) has been the added intrigue they bring to the offseason. The debate over Carey Price has dominated the conversation over the past week, but there’s plenty of intrigue to come as Seattle makes their selections on Wednesday.
Like every other person who has access to Cap Friendley and discusses hockey on the internet, I took a shot at my own Seattle expansion roster. This is not a mock expansion draft in the truest sense of the world. I didn’t draft this from the perspective of what I think Seattle will do, so don’t interpret this as predictive. I built this roster as I would if I were running Seattle’s draft, with a couple of notable exceptions (Chris Driedger, for example). A couple of additional notes. First, I didn’t take into account any expansion deals that may be struck between Seattle and other teams. I didn’t want to go too far into fantasy land, so I left out any of those side deals which may protect some notable players that have been left exposed. I will add some notes along the way where I feel side deals could be struck, however. This is just how I’d draft for Seattle given the players that were left exposed around the league. I also followed the rules set forth by the league for the draft. That means 30 selections, a minimum of 14 forwards, 9 defensemen and three goalies and all between 60 and 100 percent of the cap.
My aim was to craft a team that would have the talent to compete early, and with a little luck pull off something close to what Vegas did in 2017-18. But I also worked to select younger players who were still bordering on prospect status. Specifically higher draft picks who haven’t popped at the NHL level yet but can still offer some longer-term promise. In the end I wound up with 15 players age 25 or under, a cap hit of $63.4 million prior to free agency and roughly $17 million to re-sign RFAs and make other moves down the line.
The picks are arranged by team, alphabetically.
Continue readingThe expansion draft is less than 48 hours away and there will be ample time for another flurry of trades between Thursday and Friday’s first round. As we sit on the precipice of the next opportunity for the league’s GMs to swing some deals, it felt like a good time to run out another mailbag. With that said, let’s jump into your questions.
@donmanski – Do we still expect to see the Sabres have more than 1 top 10 pick in the draft? I thought it was attached to Reinhart going to Columbus but can’t recall where I was it.
You never want to set too high of an expectation that a pair of NHL GMs are going to do anything. But I’ll say that the original report was fairly definitive, so there’s almost certainly some truth to it. It comes down to whether or not the Sabres pull the trigger on a Jack Eichel or Sam Reinhart trade on either Thursday or Friday. Those are the two guys most likely to fetch the Sabres that extra top-10 pick, so that’s the chatter to watch.
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Two in the Box 