How to build a team in the expansion draft
This summer will be rather chaotic for the NHL. After the Mar. 1 trade deadline, they welcomed their 31st team into the league, the Las Vegas Golden Knights. With the addition of a new team, the NHL will host an expansion draft over the summer, and the selections will be announced June 21st. The Knights will select a player from all 30 NHL teams.
Each NHL team will be able to protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goalie, or one goalie and eight skaters regardless of position. The last expansion draft in the NHL was in 2000, and the number of protected players has dropped to help the Golden Knights be competitive sooner. One thing to note is that an active NHL roster only has 23 players on it and the Golden Knights will get 30 players from the draft. This means that seven of the thirty players selected from the draft will not make the roster.
The Golden Knights have a couple different strategies that they can use during the draft. First, since teams can only protect one goalie, the Golden Knights could stockpile their extra picks on goalies and then trade the extra goalies for draft picks and AHL talent to gain depth and help the Golden Knights become competitive sooner.
Another tactic the Golden Knights could use is pre-draft trades. They can make deals with other teams to agree to not select certain players in the draft. They would be able to receive draft picks and AHL talent in return. Teams that have two good goalies or a lot of depth at a specific position would approach the Golden Knights about these trades. The Golden Knights could also make trades to select pending free agents from teams so teams do not lose anyone to the Golden Knights.
The last strategy would be to select a lot of young talent in the expansion draft. With the extra players from the draft, the Golden Knights could send them to the AHL to increase their depth.
Realistically, the Golden Knights will use a combination of all three strategies. The key for them is going to be building their farm system to make sure the franchise is competitive as soon as possible.
Also, wi
th the expansion draft, the Golden Knights need to limit the number of bad contracts on the books to as few as possible. If they can do this, the Golden Knights will have the best cap flexibility in the NHL.
Lastly, as a new team it is imperative that they have a face of the franchise. The easiest name that they could acquire is Marc-Andre Fleury from the Pittsburgh Penguins. He recently lost his job to the younger Matt Murray. Fleury has won two Stanley Cups and is someone the Golden Knights can build around.
The first year for the Golden Knights might not be the most competitive year, but if they follow these strategies and build through young players and the AHL they should become competitive sooner rather than later.
