Commissioner Gary Bettman announced today that the National Hockey League will be expanding to 31 teams next season with an organization being added in Las Vegas. While this is great news for people in Nevada, all we want to know in Alberta is, who will the Calgary Flames lose in the expansion draft?
The rules are fairly straightforward. Each existing NHL team is allowed to protect one goaltender, three defencemen and seven forwards. Teams must also leave at least one defenceman and two forwards who played 40 games in the 2016-17 season exposed as well as a goaltender who is under contract or an RFA in 2017. Teams don’t have to protect first or second year players or unsigned draft picks, as they are automatically exempt from being selected in the expansion draft.
Who The Calgary Flames Could Lose In The Expansion Draft
Deciding what goaltender to protect is a strange task for the Flames, as he is almost definitely not on the team yet. Calgary is in the market for an upgrade in goal this summer and are rumoured to be interested in Marc-Andre Fleury, Ben Bishop, and James Reimer among others.
Whichever of these netminders ends up moving to Calgary will be the one that is protected by the team. This leaves Joni Ortio exposed, after he undoubtedly signs an extension this summer. This will either make him an RFA next summer or he will be signed, longer than one season. Both scenarios satisfy the expansion rules.
Jon Gillies will be just wrapping up his second professional campaign, so he will be exempt from the draft process.
Figuring out which defenders the Flames will elect to keep is a simple task as well. Calgary’s top three of Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie and Dougie Hamilton is one of the best blue line trios in the league. This would leave Jyrki Jokipakka as an RFA eligible, filling the necessary requirement for the Flames.
Dennis Wideman, Ladislav Smid and Deryk Engelland would be left available as well, but will all be pending UFA’s in a year’s time. Prospects Oliver Kylington, Rasmus Andersson and anyone selected in the upcoming draft will be exempt and ineligible to be plucked by Las Vegas.
Up front, there are a few locks to be protected by Calgary. Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Sam Bennett are the future cornerstones of this team and will be staying around. Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik are top six forwards that will be the fourth and fifth forwards protected.
This leaves the Flames with two more forwards eligible to be protected. They will have to choose from a group that includes Joe Colborne, Lance Bouma, Micheal Ferland, Josh Jooris, Matt Stajan, Brandon Bollig and Mason Raymond.
It’s not exactly a who’s who of NHL snipers, but it will be a tough decision for the Flames to make their final two choices. Stajan, Bouma, Bollig, and Raymond all have contracts that exceed the value they have provided the Flames in the past few seasons and won’t require protection. This means the Flames are down to being able to protect two of Colborne, Ferland and Jooris.
The decision of course does not have to be made until June 17, 2017, meaning a lot will depend on what acquisitions are made in the next year and what happens on the ice in the upcoming season. However, if the decision had to be made today, it would make sense to protect Colborne who is coming off a 19 goal, 44 point season.
Jooris and Ferland provide a bit of a toss-up for the final spot. Both are coming off disappointing four goal seasons with less than 20 points. Due to being two years younger, and having proven what his value can be in a short, physical playoff series, the Flames would likely elect to keep Ferland and expose Jooris to the expansion draft.
Either way, with each team only allowed to lose one player in the draft, Jokipakka is the most likely candidate to get chosen by an expansion franchise. Defensive depth is harder to find than forward depth, so it would stand to reason a new team would be more interested in a young, NHL-ready defenceman than a similar forward.
This says a couple of things about the Flames heading into the expansion draft in one year. First, they are unlikely to have to make many tough choices and are therefore not going to lose an incredible player off their roster. Nor will they be forced into making a trade that they aren’t really interested in between now and next spring so they don’t lose a good player for nothing.
Secondly, and much more damning, it shows that this team just does not have much depth on their roster. Giordano, Brodie and Hamilton are among the best top three defenders in the league. However, behind them, Smid, Engelland, Jokipakka and Wideman are among the worst group of bottom three defenders in the NHL.
Up front it’s a similar story. A team with Gaudreau, Monahan, Bennett, Frolik and Backlund has a tremendous foundation. However, when Colborne is your sixth best forward, you may just find yourself missing the playoffs by ten points like the Flames did this season.
So the Flames can breathe easy going into next year’s expansion draft, but it comes at the price of not having a deep enough roster to be a contender in the near future.
