When the Vegas Golden Knights came into the NHL, it had been a while since there last was an expansion draft. Heck, plenty of the general managers running teams weren’t even knocking on the door of their roles during the 2000 expansion draft.
So, expect a lot of them to approach things differently this time when the Seattle Kraken expansion draft takes place Wednesday.
The Golden Knights made one shrewd draft move after another, and in doing so took an island of misfit toys and spun it into the crown jewel of the Western Conference.
Because of that, it seems like GMs this time around are going to be more careful — particularly when it comes to trading players, not draft picks, to the Kraken so they will take a specific player.
That’s how Vegas basically built its core.
Most notably, the Florida Panthers traded Reilly Smith to the Golden Knights so that they would pick Jonathan Marchessault. Smith and Marchessault both became impact offensive players for Vegas.
Then there are the Anaheim Ducks, who gave the Golden Knights Shea Theodore so they’d take Clayton Stoner. Theodore is now one of the NHL’s best two-way defensemen.
Minnesota sent Alex Tuch so Vegas would take Erik Haula, and William Karlsson went to the Golden Knights so David Clarkson would get picked from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The list goes on and on.
The incentive to send the Kraken a player, specifically a younger one like Theodore in 2017, so that a particular player gets chosen is how teams get burned. It also didn’t help that multiple execs sent draft picks, and high ones at that, to Vegas in some of these deals. The Pittsburgh Penguins gave George McPhee a second-round pick so they’d take Marc-Andre Fleury.
From Seattle’s standpoint, the talking point we keep hearing is “financial flexibility.” The Kraken are being given this beautiful clean slate, with no bad contracts to deal with. They are the only team of 32 with such a gift. Vegas used some of that space to take on bad deals that other teams wanted to get out of. Ultimately, it didn’t sink them or completely mortgage their future.
Teams now seem to think the Kraken might bite on their bad deals. Nashville reportedly will leave Matt Duchene unprotected. The Flames are said to be considering the same with Mark Giordano. The temptation will be high to scoop one of them up as a reclamation project — Duchene is an elite point-getter at his best, and Giordano, though aging, isn’t too far removed from winning the Norris Trophy.
But if Seattle is that insistent on preserving its cap space, then it must find the diamonds in the rough — like Theodore and Tuch — instead of swinging big and suddenly eating up too much cap space. Sure, they’ll probably take on a couple of those deals to hit the cap floor, but don’t expect them to be wheeling and dealing with teams so they can take on other GMs’ mistakes.
What happened with the Golden Knights should be a sign to the Kraken that they can build a decent team right away through the expansion draft. However, a lot of general managers were thickheaded during the Vegas process and will approach things differently this time around. Seattle is going to have to take a somewhat different approach, too.
