Speculation: Will Teams Be Able to Make Expansion Protection Deals?

QuadDeuces

Registered User
Jul 16, 2006
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Salt Lake City
Simple question: In past expansion drafts, teams have been able to trade picks/players to the new team in exchange for a guarantee of not drafting a particular player on their team. My Isles will have a conundrum at defense, and likely don't want to lose Ryan Pulock. Can they offer Las Vegas a draft pick in exchange for a promise to not draft CdH or Pulock? Or will this not be allowed per the rules of this draft?
 

Mr Misty

The Irons Are Back!
Feb 20, 2012
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What's the incentive for Las Vegas to do that though? The NHL made the rules so that good players wind up on their roster and the league is going to "advise" management on who they should hire as GM. They aren't going to suggest a GM who would rather have magic beans than de Haan, it's everyone's interest that Vegas be competitive right away.

What kind of package would you give up from the Islanders roster in exchange for de Haan or Pulock? I doubt we'll see many trades of the "please don't take good player x" variety because a quality NHL player is generally preferable to whatever quantity offer you put together. We might see a team bribe Vegas if they only have scrubs and negative value contracts exposed to take cap off their books, but it's naive to think a team can wiggle out of losing a good player they can't protect.
 

Some Other Flame

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Dec 4, 2010
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It should require a significant incentive for Las Vegas to not take someone like de Haan. I'd want at least a first round pick or a high end prospect, otherwise I'd just take the young top-four defenseman.

Same logic should apply to teams with two starting goaltenders as well.
 

lifeisruff

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Oct 29, 2009
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It happened in 2000. San Jose and Buffalo both gave Columbus assets to keep their hands off their young goalies.
 

RandV

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Jul 29, 2003
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What's the incentive for Las Vegas to do that though? The NHL made the rules so that good players wind up on their roster and the league is going to "advise" management on who they should hire as GM. They aren't going to suggest a GM who would rather have magic beans than de Haan, it's everyone's interest that Vegas be competitive right away.

Well Las Vegas will be selecting 30 players, but they only need 20 for a starting roster. Dmen will be the easiest to acquire, so it may be worthwhile to take a 1st from the Isles instead of De Haan, and just fill their blueline with other players.

And there's nothing to really stop them working out deals. If it's not allowed then they could always just take the player, and trade him back afterwords. So for example the select De Haan, then after the draft trade him back to the Isles for Prince and a 1st.

Whoever is the expansion draft will have the choice of either just making their picks, or try to cut as many side deals as possible.
 

deakka

Registered User
Nov 6, 2009
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LV doesnt really gain anything from trying to hardball the teams trying to "bribe" them tho. Take pittsburgh for example.

We will give you a 3rd round pick not to take Murray. Sure seems low, but, if LV doesnt bite, the pens will buy out or give away MAF and LV cant take Murray anyway. And while pens ends up with some dead cap space, that doesnt help LV the slightest. And opposite what HF seems to think, this aint the school yard where the "why should we help them when we can watch them suffer" approach is the way. If a team can upgrade, they will do that rather than the satisfaction of watching other teams suffer.

So LV will know that theres no way they will be able to pick Murray anyway, and they would rather take the asset they get.
 

Brodeur

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Feb 27, 2002
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What's the incentive for Las Vegas to do that though? The NHL made the rules so that good players wind up on their roster and the league is going to "advise" management on who they should hire as GM. They aren't going to suggest a GM who would rather have magic beans than de Haan, it's everyone's interest that Vegas be competitive right away.

Naturally it depends on what they might be getting offered. They might value a draft pick or prospect over de Haan. Vegas would be in a situation where de Haan's RFA after this season and could elect a one year arbitration deal for 2017-18 to position himself as a UFA. As much as Vegas could use a proven NHL defender, they might have to worry about whether guys are going to envision being there long term.

Nashville managed to get an unheralded Kimmo Timonen from Los Angeles prior to the 1998 Expansion Draft. Part of the agreement was that Nashville wouldn't take veteran Garry Galley and would also grab the Kings #3 goaltender (the NHL had a rule in place where a team couldn't lose goalies in consecutive years in the expansion draft, so the Kings were safe for the following year with regards to goalies). At the time, the Kings had made the playoffs for the first time in five years so they maybe were a little shortsighted in wanting to keep Galley.

Maybe Vegas would be hypothetically more interested in a prospect like a Parker Wotherspoon? The Islanders might be more willing to give him up since he's not part of their core yet. As much as Vegas might want to be competitive right away, I can only imagine that their GM is going to want to accumulate some assets that they'd control for more than a couple years.
 

Rorschach

Who the f*** is Trevor Moore?
Oct 9, 2006
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Plus unlike teams already in the NHL and near the cap floor, LV actually needs to get to the cap floor. So while they won't pay for the privilege to take your cap dump, their price might be softer to the point where cap teams would do it. Contender cap teams are able to lure and sign UFAs while LV might not have that clout.

So they can sign a 3rd liner for 1st liner money to get to the floor and get a 3rd liner, or they can get Dustin Brown and a 1st from LA. LA not only dumps a huge cap hit but they can buy protection for any #4 defenseman and the rest of their roster in the draft.

Since LV is at the very very beginning of their rebuild, the term won't matter and most of the $$ was already paid by LA in the front of the deal.
 

Jumptheshark

Rebooting myself
Oct 12, 2003
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Somewhere on Uranus
Simple question: In past expansion drafts, teams have been able to trade picks/players to the new team in exchange for a guarantee of not drafting a particular player on their team. My Isles will have a conundrum at defense, and likely don't want to lose Ryan Pulock. Can they offer Las Vegas a draft pick in exchange for a promise to not draft CdH or Pulock? Or will this not be allowed per the rules of this draft?
They always do.
 

caymanmew

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May 18, 2014
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Well Las Vegas will be selecting 30 players, but they only need 20 for a starting roster. Dmen will be the easiest to acquire, so it may be worthwhile to take a 1st from the Isles instead of De Haan, and just fill their blueline with other players.

And there's nothing to really stop them working out deals. If it's not allowed then they could always just take the player, and trade him back afterwords. So for example the select De Haan, then after the draft trade him back to the Isles for Prince and a 1st.

Whoever is the expansion draft will have the choice of either just making their picks, or try to cut as many side deals as possible.

No trading back till January 1st if i am not mistaken.
 

Spawn

Something in the water
Feb 20, 2006
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I see the incentive for Las Vegas to take some of these types of deals. One of the biggest things that will hold them back will be the lack of any sort of prospect depth. The league can say they want Vegas to be competitive, but they wont be competitive with a team full of #4 d-men and a bunch of 2nd/3rd line tweener forwards. They're going to need top end talent. And realistically they're not going to get it anywhere other than the first few years that they're part of the draft.

Stocking up on some picks will be smart for them to try and add some prospects that have high end ability.
 

rumrokh

THORBS
Mar 10, 2006
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I see the incentive for Las Vegas to take some of these types of deals. One of the biggest things that will hold them back will be the lack of any sort of prospect depth. The league can say they want Vegas to be competitive, but they wont be competitive with a team full of #4 d-men and a bunch of 2nd/3rd line tweener forwards. They're going to need top end talent. And realistically they're not going to get it anywhere other than the first few years that they're part of the draft.

Stocking up on some picks will be smart for them to try and add some prospects that have high end ability.

Plus, if you're Vegas and looking at taking a certain guy, you can probably snag a player at the same position and relatively equivalent impact from another team. Those players they're being paid to avoid are not going to be the difference between making and missing the playoffs, so having more picks should be a lot better than having a few slightly more preferable players.
 

Jumptheshark

Rebooting myself
Oct 12, 2003
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let me twist this question


The availability lists are released and Vegas is going over the players availabe and are deciding who to take

it is team B--they have seen player X from team A has been exposed--they call up Vegas and say "Hey, we want player X--if you take him and trade him to us--we will offer this"-that is when the fun begins, Teams may expose players who they think will hold little charm to vegas--but vegas can draft and then trade them to another team for assets
 

derriko

Registered User
Mar 7, 2009
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Las Vegas
Like has been mentioned, you only need 20 players for a roster, and maybe 2 extra forwards / dmen that can fill a role for a little while when injuries happen.

That leaves 6 extra players at least I would move for futures. And #4 dmen can surprisingly return some decent picks and / or prospects.

I would overpick d-men and use them as trade bait personally.
 

Not Sure

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Feb 8, 2016
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Buffalo
Like has been mentioned, you only need 20 players for a roster, and maybe 2 extra forwards / dmen that can fill a role for a little while when injuries happen.

That leaves 6 extra players at least I would move for futures. And #4 dmen can surprisingly return some decent picks and / or prospects.

I would overpick d-men and use them as trade bait personally.

This, why would they take a draft pick over top 4 defenseman if available. Even if they decide they already have enough defenseman and that 7 of them are better then a guy available I'd just take the player and shop them to another one of the many teams looking for defensive help. They'd get much more then a pick and a worse player back.

I feel like we will see teams given up picks to protect assets, but it will be more borderline players and just in case type trades. Like a team who has a good defenseman and a good forward available will give Vegas a 3rd as insurance to pick the position they'd rather lose. This is why they put in the rule that players traded this year can't be traded back to their previous team for another year. Otherwise I imagine we would have seen a lot of players being sheltered on other teams.
 

Chan790

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Jan 24, 2012
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Yes...however, I'd expect the costs would be high, unless you're talking about role-players that you want to keep, not your 3/4D. The deal has to work for them...they're probably not going to agree to not take Pulock unless what they are getting for not taking Pulock is as valuable to them. (Because after the Exp. Draft, they can swap these spare D for F. I would expect them to take as many unprotected quality young D as they can. The rules are going to make it nearly impossible for them to get top-6 F through expansion.)

Also, I would expect the form of some of these deals to be more along the lines of their late-round draft pick for your late-round draft pick, plus a guy you are protecting but value less, plus the promise to not draft the guy you're asking them not to. (They have no assets to trade other than picks and have to offer something, getting back your late pick allows them to make an endless number of such deals as they're not depleting their picks making protection deals.)

So if you value your best unprotected D more than a good 2nd-line F...
 

Eric Sachs

Registered User
Jan 31, 2007
18,643
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What's the incentive for Las Vegas to do that though? The NHL made the rules so that good players wind up on their roster and the league is going to "advise" management on who they should hire as GM. They aren't going to suggest a GM who would rather have magic beans than de Haan, it's everyone's interest that Vegas be competitive right away.

What kind of package would you give up from the Islanders roster in exchange for de Haan or Pulock? I doubt we'll see many trades of the "please don't take good player x" variety because a quality NHL player is generally preferable to whatever quantity offer you put together. We might see a team bribe Vegas if they only have scrubs and negative value contracts exposed to take cap off their books, but it's naive to think a team can wiggle out of losing a good player they can't protect.

Remember, they still get to select a player from said team as well.

In your instance, LV could value:
1st/2nd + another Isles player > de Haan
 

slappipappi

Registered User
Jul 22, 2010
4,476
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LV doesnt really gain anything from trying to hardball the teams trying to "bribe" them tho. Take pittsburgh for example.

We will give you a 3rd round pick not to take Murray. Sure seems low, but, if LV doesnt bite, the pens will buy out or give away MAF and LV cant take Murray anyway. And while pens ends up with some dead cap space, that doesnt help LV the slightest. And opposite what HF seems to think, this aint the school yard where the "why should we help them when we can watch them suffer" approach is the way. If a team can upgrade, they will do that rather than the satisfaction of watching other teams suffer.

So LV will know that theres no way they will be able to pick Murray anyway, and they would rather take the asset they get.

You make it sound like Pittsburgh buying out MAF or giving him away is more akin to "scratching their back".

Buying him out costs lots of money and cap space. That would be worth quite a bit more than a 3rd round pick to the Penguins I would expect.
 

deakka

Registered User
Nov 6, 2009
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You make it sound like Pittsburgh buying out MAF or giving him away is more akin to "scratching their back".

Buying him out costs lots of money and cap space. That would be worth quite a bit more than a 3rd round pick to the Penguins I would expect.

Yeah it costs money for pittsburgh. It also doesnt help LV since they wont be able to pick Murray anyway. So i dont see why LV rather let pens buy MAF out than geting a 3rd round pick?
 

Mike Jones

Registered User
Apr 12, 2007
12,638
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Calgary
Since LV is at the very very beginning of their rebuild, the term won't matter and most of the $$ was already paid by LA in the front of the deal.

Just nitpicking but it isn't a "rebuild" in Vegas' case. You can't rebuild something that hasn't been "built" in the first place.

Just sayin'... ;)
 

Flukeshot

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Feb 19, 2004
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Using the OP example, DeHaan AND Pulock will be exposed.

NYI can offer LV a pick to dictate which one they don't take. LV still gets a good player and say a mid-rd pick to take DeHaan instead of Pulock.

Alternatively, NYI could value them both enough to give an exempt prospect, like Ho-Sang, for LV to take their worst exposed player.
 

Skinnyjimmy08

WorldTraveler
Mar 30, 2012
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teams will figure out every possible deal there is to potentially make with LV... im sure every team has an employee that will be assigned to this like now
 

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