Damien Cox: Don’t be fooled: The expansion draft doesn’t make the NHL better — but it does make it more interesting

We’ve come a long way since “Ottawa apologizes.”

Yes, the good old days of ’92 when the Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning joined the NHL and poor Mel Bridgman, Ottawa’s rookie GM, kept trying to pick ineligible players. Then had to apologize.

The NHL was a different operation back then, not nearly as sophisticated in so many ways compared to today, and the expansion draft was different, too. Back then, it was still a way for existing teams to give the newbies nothing in return for their initiation fee, or to foist horrible contracts on the new “partners.” The Senators’ first non-goalie expansion draft pick was Brad Shaw. Tampa’s was Joe Reekie.

The expansion clubs were expected to be awful. By year five, perhaps, if they hadn’t already driven away their once excited fan base, they could start to compete.

Well, 2017 changed all that. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights, blessed with ambitious ownership and a smart, experienced executive, used the expansion draft process to acquire enough good players that — incredibly — the team went to the Stanley Cup Final in its first year.

This was, of course, a terrible indictment of just how watered-down the league had become under Gary Bettman. But that barn door was opened years ago. Nowadays, the hockey media in generally has become so pro-NHL, so pro-grow-and-promote-the-game, that the introduction of the Kraken is generally being treated as if it is some great achievement by the NHL, as if a 32nd team will enhance the league in ways no one could possibly have imagined.

It won’t. The television numbers remain microscopic in the U.S., and going from NBC back to ESPN isn’t going to change that. This was about stuffing $650 million (U.S.) into the jeans of existing owners, and that money has come in handy over the past 18 months as the league has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions of dollars, during the pandemic. The only team that will benefit directly is Vancouver, which finally has a true geographical rival. So if the objective of this expansion was to help the Canucks, then it’s a job well done.

The other positive thing you can say is that the NHL, first with the Vegas expansion and now through the process of bringing Seattle in, has made expansion a lot more interesting. Combined with a flat salary cap and the memories of what Vegas was able to do, the expansion draft process has helped to generate a dizzying explosion of player movement and intrigue over the past week to 10 days.

Protected lists will become available Saturday, and you can expect quite a few big names will be on it. Matt Duchene. PK Subban. Maybe Mark Giordano. Seattle makes its picks on Wednesday, and there is already enormous pressure on Kraken GM Ron Francis to make as big an impact as George McPhee did with the Knights four years ago.

Interestingly, now it’s Vegas that is playing the role of the team in an uncomfortable position of having to come up with complex solutions to deal with the twin problems of keeping the assets it wants and moving out expensive players it can’t afford. The names of Max Pacioretty, Marc-Andre Fleury and Jonathan Marchessault are among those circulating as players the Knights might move to solve their salary cap crunch.

There is already enormous pressure on Seattle Kraken GM Ron Francis to make as big an impact as George McPhee did with the Golden Knights four years ago, writes Damien Cox.

Everybody was aware Seattle was coming in. But nobody saw the flat cap coming, because it was created by the pandemic. So quite a number of teams are scrambling, including the Maple Leafs, who appear helpless to stop Zach Hyman, an important player, from walking out the door. We’re going to see which NHL managers really know their stuff over the next few weeks, and Leaf GM Kyle Dubas is clearly under the spotlight for so far failing miserably to push the team any further forward than it was under Lou Lamoriello.

Everywhere, the news has been coming fast and furious. Montreal may expose Shea Weber and his $7.8 million (U.S.) cap hit to the Kraken, but Weber may not play at all next season because of various injuries. So the news actually helps Montreal in the short-term and its protection issues. And could the Habs manipulate the cap with Weber in the same way Tampa did with Nikita Kucherov?

Edmonton has taken on Duncan Keith’s contract. Minny bought out and Zach Parise at enormous cost, partially to prevent losing other players to Seattle.

“We get to protect two more players,” said GM Bill Guerin after the buyouts were announced.

Colorado traded a good defenceman, Ryan Graves, to New Jersey to avoid losing Graves to Seattle. Dallas goalie Ben Bishop waived his no-movement clause, so Stars could protect Anton Khudobin. Colorado’s Erik Johnson and Sabres winger Jeff Skinner also waived their no movement clauses and could go in the expansion draft. At the same time, we’re expecting two of the game’s top young stars, Jack Eichel and Seth Jones, to be traded sometime very soon, and Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog may be headed to unrestricted free agency.

It’s not just about Seattle building a team. A club like Detroit, with $9.5 million worth of cap space, could make big strides in the coming days. The Wings got a second-round pick last fall from Rangers for taking on Marc Staal’s contract, and they could go that route again. Detroit has 11 picks in the first four rounds of this summer’s draft, two firsts and three seconds, and a top prospect, Moritz Seider, on the way next season. You always knew Steve Yzerman was going to turn that franchise back into a winner.

So while Leaf fans fixate on Hyman, it’s probably worth your while to take the big picture view for the next little while. Expansion doesn’t make the NHL better. But the way it’s done now, it does make things quite a bit more interesting.