Cards Up for These Four Gamblers

With the Vegas expansion draft being revealed tomorrow night, we polled a few of the GMs around the league and gave them the keys to the new franchise and see how they could do building a team from scratch. Under this experiment the 4 GMs had to pick a team of at least 14 Forwards, 9 Defenceman and 3 Goalies selecting from the available unprotected players amongst the 30 teams in the league. While the teams could work knowing they have the UFA rights to Malkin and Johnson, there was no knowing the details of the draft consideration trades Vegas had made with Carolina and Minnesota, so our volunteers were given free reign to select from those teams. 

As we can tell from the rosters below, each team took some very different strategies in building their teams and shows how unpredictable the expansion draft can be. The list has already been handed in from Vegas and from the list below, the real Vegas team has selected 13 players that don’t appear on this list at all, so don’t try and judge who you might lose based on this. None of the teams completely struck out on who will be on the actual Vegas team as each managed to at least land on 5 players that will actually suit up for the Golden Knights this upcoming season (or at least be drafted by them). Only one player was a consensus amongst all four volunteers and that was J.T. Compher from the cup winning Edmonton Oilers, so we’ll see if Vegas agrees. We’ve left all four of our volunteers anonymous, so we named them Teams B thru E (Team A reserved for Dan)

Full Pick Board with Corresponding Teams - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gk6BLk5jX_EdoiZE_UNZ8NjND36bEe-hAwhn-ZH0lYM/edit?usp=sharing

TEAM B

Van Riemsdyk-Malkin-Niederreiter

Grimaldi-Backlund-Merkley

Tanev-Staal-Johnson

Compher-Roy-Rowney

ex - Appelton, MacEachern, Gignac, 

Blackwell, Frederic, Spacek, 

Calvert, Bailey

Suter-Morrissey

Severson-Marincin

Montour-Walker

ex - Butcher, Kampfer, Morin

Korpisalo

Lehner

DeSmith

So our first team here is an interesting mix. This team is definitely valuing a little more grit and banking on experience. It’s a team pushing to the height of the cap even before re-signing players so the strategy here seems to be to try and grab the best players now and try and flip after the draft. Some notable picks here are they strayed from the other 3 teams in picking Will Butcher from the Penguins rather than Ondrej Kase, who the others seem to be banking on a return to form. Another breaking the trend pick was picking Grimaldi over Nolan Patrick (or any of the quality on Dallas). Grimaldi does help the team this year but it would be hard for Vegas to try and move off some of the more sexier names on the Stars list. 

TEAM C

Perron -Malkin-Carter

Roslovic-Atkinson-Tatar

Brassard-Johnson-Compher

McGinn-Staal-Zucker

ex - Kampf, Lehkonen, Patrick, 

Clifford, Frederic, Girgensonsons, 

Frolik, Kase

Suter-Severson

Murphy-Brodie

Montour-Hjalmarsson

ex - Gudbransson, Oesterle, Siegenthaler

Korpisalo

Petersen

DeSmith

Team C is very similar to the previous team in that they are drafting to the cap. They’re going a little younger and inexperienced in net by swapping in Petersen for Lehner, but the rest of the team is built to win now. They’re the only of the four teams to really score on David Perron’s high rating. They’ve also decided to upset the balance between Chicago and Philadelphia by selecting Jeff Carter to fit on the other wing. The bottom pair plus the two extra D make a combined 15.5mil, so you have to envision this team would be looking to move a couple D after the draft.

TEAM D

Erikson Ek-Malkin-Niederreiter

Atkinson-Johnson-Compher

Laughton-Dickinson-Kuraly

McGinn-Grigorenko-Patrick

EX - Nieto, Hayden, Frederic, 

Kase, Spacek, Chlapik, Senyshyn

Goligoski-Holl

Severson-Hakanpaa

Matheson-Montour

ex - Jones, Honka, Johansen

Korpisalo

Lehner

Georgiev

So we’re starting to see some familiar patterns amongst the teams. Korpisalo has firmly locked up the starting spot on all 3 teams, though with a deal already reached between Carolina and Vegas that may be assuming too much at this point. Team D taking advantage of the cheap deal and high rating for Justin Holl and Hakanpaa but the long term success of that may be limited. Unlike the other two teams, this team tried to give themselves a little more breathing room by getting players that weren’t waiver eligible along with giving themselves cap room heading into the off-season. The only team to also pick two extra UFAs, so unlike the other two Team D has decided to probably burn one of their picks on a UFA they don’t intend on signing.

TEAM E

Eriksson Ek-Malkin-Merkley

Ritchie-Compher-Rakell

Appleton-Johnson-Palmieri

Dickinson-Kuraly-Zucker

EX - Aube-Kubel, Lehkonen, Patrick, 

Virtanen, Kase, Chlapik

Murphy-Hakanpaa

Shattenkirk-Miller

McCabe-Carlsson

EX - Jones, Honka, Belpedio

Petersen

DeSmith

There may have been a sneak preview on this team, the ol’ reply has given everyone a look at this team. Some notable differences though. The defence is probably the weakest of the 4 but they’re the only team to select more than 3 goalies, trying to see who survives from the group. They also left a UFA spot open meaning they can go into the weeks ahead judging to see what is out there and what they need. As it was with team D, team E has also left themselves with some cap room to be able to be players in free agency and the trade market.