How Montreal Canadiens Will Legally Protect Extra Players In Expansion Draft

The Montreal Canadiens have re-signed Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen to two-year contracts. This sets them up well for the Seattle expansion draft that is coming up in two years.

The Montreal Canadiens have brought back Finnish wingers Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen on two year contracts. Armia will earn $2.6 million each season before becoming an unrestricted free agent and Lehkonen will be a restricted free agent after making $2.4 million for the next two years.

That 2021 offseason when both wingers will be free agents is going to be a busy time for the  National Hockey League. That is when Seattle will get a hockey franchise as their expansion draft is set for June, 2021.

The last expansion took place in 2017 when the Vegas Golden Knights drafted what everyone thought would be a bottom-feeder. They ended up making a run to the Stanley Cup Final with the castoffs from the other 30 NHL teams.

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The Canadiens lost Alexei Emelin in that draft, who was entering the final season of his four year, $4.1 million annual contract. It wasn’t a monumental loss for the Canadiens, but some teams lost huge pieces of their team like the Minnesota Wild who lose Alex Tuch and Erik Haula.

The teams who set up side deals and got the Golden Knights to take on a player with a high salary, or avoid a specific player ended up losing the most. The Florida Panthers ended up losing Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault who both immediately became top six wingers on a Cup contender.

Looking ahead to the Seattle draft, I don’t think many teams are going to make these types of trades to ship out cap space or try to manipulate the draft in their favour. The Canadiens will just protect the seven forwards, three defensemen and goaltender that are allowed under the rules and allow Seattle to take a depth player.

Though the Habs are unlikely to give up draft picks to have Seattle take a certain player, they could be setting up their roster where it makes it difficult for Seattle to get a good player from Montreal.

If you look at the Habs depth chart on capfriendly.com, you will see a lot of their players are set to be free agents in 2021. Their entire top line of Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar will be hitting unrestricted free agency at that time.

With the contracts given out yesterday, Armia will be a UFA and Lehkonen will be a RFA at the same time as well. Jeff Petry on defense will be an unrestricted free agent in 2021.

That is a lot of big pieces on the roster hitting free agency at the same time as an expansion draft. But, here is how the Canadiens could, and likely are setting up to use that to their advantage:

Each team is allowed to protect seven forwards. The Habs would likely protect Gallagher, Danault, Tatar, Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Paul Byron if they had to send in their protection list tonight. They do not have to protect Ryan Poehling because he will only have two professional seasons played at that time so the Seattle team can’t pick him.

That would leave Armia and Lehkonen unprotected and available to be taken by Seattle. However, the Canadiens can get creative here with one or more of their unrestricted free agents. The Canadiens can negotiate extensions with UFAs, but manipulate when they make it official to legally protect extra players from ending up in Seattle.

When Vegas was making their picks. T. J. Oshie was available to be taken but was set to become a UFA a week later. The day after the expansion draft, Oshie signed a huge contract extension with the Washington Capitals.

The timing of this extension was not coincidental. Had he signed it the day before the expansion draft, Vegas could have taken him, or Washington would have to protect him and leave either Lars Eller or Marcus Johansson exposed.

So, the Capitals and Oshie agreed to wait until after Vegas announced its picks to sign the extension so they could basically protect an extra forward.

The Montreal Canadiens could do this exact same thing with any of their UFAs. I’m guessing Brendan Gallagher loves being a Canadiens player and would be willing to help the team protect an extra forward by manipulating the timing of his next extension. The team and player can agree to a deal, not protect him from Seattle and then sign the contract officially after the expansion process.

Worst case scenario would be Seattle takes him anyway. Well, then Marc Bergevin just waits a week or so until Gallagher becomes a UFA on July 1 and signs the extension then. This would allow the Habs to leave Gallagher unprotected in the draft, but be certain he would be back the next season. They could then protect either Armia or Lehkonen, whoever performs best in the next two seasons.

It is fully within the rules to negotiate with Gallagher based on this timeline, allowing the Habs to stop an eighth forward from going to Seattle. With all of the potential UFAs in 2021, we could see a lot of players unprotected in expansion, but signing extensions with the Habs on June 25, 2021.