Canadiens: What You Need To Know About Expansion

With Expansion all but confirmed, here is what you need to know about the Montreal Canadiens and the new Las Vegas team.

It was reported yesterday that the NHL is now entering the final stages before officially announcing a new expansion team in Las Vegas. There are still some obstacles such as the $500 million expansion fee but that is said to be just a formality at this point.

We also have to see what they’ll be called. How about the Las Vegas Millionaires? Or the Las Vegas Poker Face’s? Okay, that one isn’t very good. Las Vegas Diamonds? Could always go with an established name like the old ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers. The Wranglers were pretty successful in their small 8 year run. My personal favorite and I hope they choose it, is the Las Vegas Vipers.

Name and fee aside, far greater things need to be addressed, especially for current NHL team’s like the Montreal Canadiens. Expansion means each of the 30 teams needs to get ready to lose a potentially valuable member of their team.

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The one thing that can be gathered by the expansion rules is that the NHL wants this new team to be competitive immediately. There will be a significant pool of established NHL players to choose from and this new team, if run correctly, could be a playoff contender in year one.

So what does all of this mean for the Canadiens and the rest of the NHL? Well, they get to protect 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 1 goalie. Any players with any form of no-trade or no-move clauses must take up one of those spots. Teams can ask players with these clauses to waive them but the players do not have to oblige.

For a more in depth overview of the rules for the coming expansion draft, I’d suggest going to General Fanager. You can also play around with their new Expansion Draft Tool and I have to admit, it’s pretty cool.

A lot will change over the next calendar year but as each roster sits right now, some teams could be in trouble. Chicago already has 7 of their 11 spots filled with players with no move and no trade clauses. Anaheim, Columbus, Minnesota and Pittsburgh each have 4 or 5. Winnipeg could risk losing Jacob Trouba because they are forced to protect Dustin Byfuglien, Toby Enstrom and Tyler Myers.

As far as the Canadiens are concerned, they have two players already occupying protected spots in P.K. Subban and Jeff Petry. Unfortunately, both those players are defencemen and take up two of the 3 defenceman spots. That means that three of Alexei Emelin, Nathan Beaulieu, Greg Pateryn and Mark Barberio will be exposed to the expansion draft. I believe Beaulieu will ultimately take up that 3rd spot.

As far as top prospects go, Charlie Lindgren, Noah Juulsen, Nikita Scherbak, Michael McCarron, Artturi Lehkonen, Martin Reway and Zach Fucale are exempt. Some things could change but most or all of these players should remain exempt a year from now.

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As far as the forwards and goalies are concerned, the Canadiens have all 7 of their spots available. The team obviously isn’t 100% set at the moment but Alex Galchenyuk, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Plekanec are near locks to be protected and Carey Price will be the lone goalie protected. That means Mike Condon will be left available. The remaining three forward spots will be occupied by some combination of Lars Eller, Paul Byron, Jacob de La Rose, Phillip Danault, Daniel Carr, Sven Andrighetto, Charles Hudon, Brian Flynn, Torrey Mitchell and Stefan Matteau as well as any potential free agents and/or trade acquisitions this summer and next season.

Again, things will be changing over the course this summer for the Canadiens as well as the 29 other franchises. Teams are going to be attempting to circumvent the expansion process though Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has already promised severe penalties if teams do not comply with expansion rules.

Even though we are a year away from the expansion draft, the Canadiens and their fans must be prepared for a lot of change as well as losing an established player.