Examining Colorado's current expansion draft situation

In an offseason that seems set to never end given the league’s owners current position of trying to take even more money from the players, we’re digging deeper into the bag of tricks that we in the biz call “content.”

Today, we’re taking a look at one of the most-requested topics from readers: the expansion draft, how it works, and where the Avs sit heading into the final year before we actually get to it.

The Seattle Kraken is set to become the NHL’s 32nd franchise upon the completion of the next NHL season (assuming we have one…). Expectations will be high as they’ve hired a slew of experienced front office people and a world-class analytics staff to complement the years of experience from Ron Francis and Co.

Vegas set the bar for expansion success when they went to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural year but it’s hard to believe the Kraken will get the same kind of over-the-top good fortune the Golden Knights did when essentially their entire roster experiences career years at the same time.

That doesn’t mean the Kraken won’t be able to build a solid roster, however, as there are teams in vulnerable positions who face the prospect of either paying a hefty price to avoid losing certain players or just losing one from the draft itself.

One of those teams is certainly Colorado, which finds itself in a completely different situation than the last expansion draft when they almost didn’t care who they protected.

Before we dig too far into it, let’s refresh on the rules. From NHL.com:

Current NHL teams can protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goalie, under the following conditions.

* All players with no-movement clauses at the time of the draft, and who decline to waive those clauses, must be protected and will be counted toward their team’s applicable protection limits.

* All first- and second-year NHL players, and all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection (and will not be counted toward protection limits.

In addition, all NHL teams must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the draft:

* One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played in at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.

* Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.

* One goalie who is under contract in 2021-22 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to 2021-22. If a team elects to make a restricted free agent goalie available to meet this requirement, that goalie must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the team’s protected list.

* Players with potential career-ending injuries who have missed more than the previous 60 consecutive games (or who otherwise have been confirmed to have a career-threatening injury) may not be used to satisfy a team’s player exposure requirements unless approval is received from the NHL. Such players also may be deemed exempt from selection.

Let’s start with Colorado’s exempt players (highlight for emphasis for all of you prepared with jokes):

Shane Bowers, Nick Henry, Conor Timmins, Bowen Byram, Justus Annunen, Adam Werner, Martin Kaut, and all unsigned prospects.

That leaves us with the rest of Colorado’s NHL and AHL rosters.

The Erik Johnson Question

Everyone who has listened to any of the podcasts we’ve done on the expansion draft knows where I sit on this topic but I know some of our readers aren’t big pod people so I’m laying it out here, too.

After next season, Johnson has two years remaining on his contract at $6M AAV. His No-Movement Clause means he has to be automatically protected in the expansion draft.

That is unless the Avalanche asks him to waive the NMC and he agrees.

We know Johnson loves playing in Colorado and has frequently referred to it as “home.” He’s a major part of the leadership group inside the locker room and has served his time through the darkest era in Avalanche history.

In a fair and just world, Erik Johnson wins a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche and retires in Colorado with the most games played of any Avs defenseman ever and gives consideration to having his jersey retired.

Instead, we live in this world, where Johnson and the Avs face an ugly reality: waive the NMC or the Avs have to buy out the remainder of Johnson’s contract. Buying it out would save the Avs about $4M total as they would pay out $8M to Johnson spread across four years with a $2M cap hit each year. That’s also money out of Johnson’s pocket, which is a consideration for him if (when?) the team asks him to waive his NMC.

The other consideration is the likelihood Johnson gets drafted. Seattle is starting their franchise from scratch and the player Johnson is today certainly isn’t the one he was when he was 25. Johnson turns 33 in March and is clearly on the backside of his career.

All of this is to ask the basic question: With so many younger and cheaper options available, why would the Kraken target Johnson?

Realistically, they probably wouldn’t, at least to keep. If Seattle follows what Vegas did and selects 10 defensemen and trades several to D-hungry teams for draft picks, Johnson could have some appeal in that situation. But because of the flat salary cap situation the league is in, Johnson’s $6M AAV remains too onerous for the limited player Johnson is today.

Simply put, the easy answer here is for Colorado to ask Johnson to waive the NMC and for Johnson to do so. He likely stays in Colorado and the Avs get to keep a fan favorite and longtime loyal player for what should be legitimate Stanley Cup contending years.

Okay, now what do they do on defense?

Let’s operate in the world where Johnson waives the NMC. The Avs have three slots to protect a D because going eight skaters and leaving either Nazem Kadri or Andre Burakovsky unprotected doesn’t make a ton of sense (we’ll get to it later all the same).

Cale Makar and Sam Girard are the obvious ones to protect here with Devon Toews and Ryan Graves as the last two realistic options.

Graves had a nice year and got rewarded with the kind of financial security he could’ve only dreamed about two years ago before his unexpected breakout. Toews, however, is the more dynamic of the two and Colorado paid a meaningful price (even if it was cheap by normal market standards) in the trade to get him and then rewarded him with a four-year deal that will pay him more than $16M in total.

Barring a total collapse by Toews in his first year in Colorado, he’s the third player to protect.

Protect: Makar, Girard, Toews
Expose: Graves, Johnson, Ian Cole (pending UFA)

From the forward side of things, I think it’s pretty simple at the top. They can protect seven forwards and several are pretty easy.

Nathan MacKinnon, Gabe Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky are the easy five protections.

Burakovsky might the only shaky one there as the team has only committed two years to him and if he continues producing like he did last year, his price tag might become too exorbitant to keep when his current deal ends in 2022.

Assuming he has another season somewhere in the 50-point range with 20+ goals, they could just decide to expose Burakovsky in the expansion draft in order to avoid paying the high price tag down the road (Seattle would 100% take him). I think that’s a risky game of chicken but I could at least follow the logic involved, especially with so many forward prospects (Alex Newhook, especially) who will be pushing for NHL time over the next three years.

Brandon Saad is the next player of intrigue here. He’s a pending UFA, meaning Seattle can select him and sign him to a deal before he ever hits the open market. I wrote recently about the difficulties of the Avs finding the money to re-sign Saad so exposing him does make some sense.

The reason I’m going with them protecting Saad is that the Avs will have a chance to clear a little cap space and get breathing room with the expansion draft. If Saad is selected, the Avs get no salary cap relief of any kind. Even if Saad then leaves in free agency, the Avs will have Martin Kaut, Shane Bowers and Newhook all ready to transition to full-time NHL status. That is to say, they can lose Saad in free agency and be okay.

With six forwards now protected, there’s one spot left and four players under real consideration here: J.T. Compher, Joonas Donskoi, Valeri Nichushkin and Tyson Jost.

I know some of you just rolled your eyes at the idea of protecting Jost over the other guys but given his extremely cheap salary and age, if Jost has any kind of step forward at all this year he makes a lot of sense for Seattle to target as a very young and still cheap forward piece to build with.

Money is really the play in this seventh spot and that’s why I would say Jost is a prime consideration. Seattle’s front office has been built with a top-notch analytics department and Jost has strong underlying numbers that Compher and (especially) Donskoi do not.

Nichushkin has great defensive metrics but we saw him once again hit the wall hard on offense in the postseason. Compher is a touch more reputation than reality right now and Donskoi is the oldest and most expensive of all of these players (also the one with the highest scoring track record).

Sifting through all those factors, I think where I land on this one is still a little bit of a cop-out but this season will be a battle between all of those guys to prove why they should be protected. Doing this a year out is difficult because we don’t have the upcoming season’s worth of information to help us decide.

With that in mind, right now I’m protecting Tyson Jost. It’s purely a money play here as he’s the cheapest option and this guarantees Seattle takes one of Compher, Donskoi, Nichushkin, Graves, or Francouz (spoiler alert). That also guarantees Colorado removes meaningful salary from its books, all of which can be replaced internally with players on ELCs (or in the case of Conor Timmins, a cheap second contract).

That bring us to goaltending, which I just tipped my hand on.

I’m protecting Philipp Grubauer. Barring more injuries or a major shift in the play of either goaltender, Grubauer is the better player today and is headed into free agency. If the Avs protect Francouz, Grubauer immediately becomes arguably the best goaltender available to Seattle and they most definitely would select him.

That would be problematic because they would get zero salary cap relief but would still need to spend money on another goaltender. Is it Adam Werner? If he has a great year in the AHL, maybe that is the play, in which case they’d be rolling the dice on a Cup contender with a Francouz-Werner tandem.

Anybody comfortable with that? Certainly not today, that’s for sure.

Grubauer gets protected, which brings the final protection list to:

F: MacKinnon, Landeskog, Rantanen, Burakovsky, Kadri, Saad, Jost

D: Makar, Girard, Toews

G: Grubauer

Who does the Avs lose then?

It comes down to Compher, Donskoi, Nichushkin, Graves, Francouz. It would be silly for Seattle to pick any of the AHL guys (though I could see Logan O’Connor making sense if the Kraken were huge believers in him) when they have a chance to get proven talent for reasonable prices.

Of course, everything is reasonable when you have zero dollars, which makes Johnson a viable target if the Kraken were obsessing over leadership more than future projections.

It’s not an easy answer today but if I’m Seattle looking at that group, I’m probably most intrigued by Compher, whose combination of versatility, age, and contract make him the best combination of attributes. You know, the same reasons the Avs would have to protect him.

Since I know many of you will disagree with my list, what would your protections be for Colorado? Let me know in the comments and we’ll verbally spar like gentle folk.