Montreal Canadiens: Current Habs Most Likely To Be Selected By Seattle Kraken

The Montreal Canadiens have one year before they have to worry about the expansion draft. Who is most likely to be taken by the Kraken?

The Montreal Canadiens have a lot on their minds right now. They are preparing for a play-in series with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the middle of the summer. They have two players who had tested positive for Covid-19 who just returned to practice. They have a busy offseason coming up with a salary cap that has flatlined and surely changed the plans of many NHL teams.

Also lurking in the not so distant future is the next NHL expansion. The Seattle Kraken were officially born on Thursday and will hold an expansion draft next summer to fill out their roster.

While there are more pressing issues on the Habs plate right now, any moves they make will have an impact on their expansion protection list. Teams are allowed to protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and a goaltender or eight skaters and a goaltender.

The last time we saw this was in 2017 when the Vegas Golden Knights joined the league. The Canadiens, like most teams, protected seven forwards, three defenders and Carey Price and lost Alexei Emelin to the expansion franchise. That gave the Habs an additional $4 million in cap space for the summer, but they used it to sign Karl Alzner as a replacement for the departed Russian defender.

You could say that losing Emelin wasn’t a bad thing for the Habs, but adding a similar type player in Alzner hasn’t really worked out.

So, who are the Habs going to protect this time around? Well, their roster could change between now and then, and they also have a number of pending unrestricted free agents which will make things interesting. Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Tatar, Joel Armia and Jeff Petry will be free agents next summer if they aren’t extended before then. You could make a case that all of them should be protected, but if they aren’t signed it doesn’t make sense to protect them.

Also, it is important to keep in mind that players playing in their first or second pro season do not need to be protected. Seattle can’t take a player that hasn’t finished three pro seasons. So, the Habs don’t have to protect Ryan Poehling, Cayden Primeau, Alexander Romanov, Jesse Ylonen, Josh Brook, or Nick Suzuki.

Another note is that players with no movement clauses need to be protected. The only Habs player that affects is Carey Price, although he would obviously by the goaltender protected anyway.

Who will they protect? And who will be released to the Kraken? Let’s take a look at three different scenarios.

What if Habs protect eight skaters and 1 goalie?

What if the Habs look at the first scenario and decide they don’t want to lose Mete. They can protected more than three defencemen if they want, but then they can only protect a total of eight skaters.

So, let’s say they protect Weber, Petry, Juulsen and Mete. That gives them four defenders to hang on to for the foreseeable future. Of course, this again assumes that the pending UFAs are re-signed, but we will talk more about that in the next scenario.

That would still leave Fleury unprotected, but the Habs could only keep four forwards in this situation. If they only keep four forwards, they are far more likely to lose someone up front than on the back end.

Who would the Habs protect if they can only keep four forwards? Well, they won’t want to lose a recent third overall pick so Kotkaniemi is protected. Brendan Gallagher is the heart and soul of the team so he as to be kept as well.

That only leaves two protection slots for Domi, Drouin, Tatar and Danault. Tatar was the team’s leading scorer this season, Domi was the leading scorer last season, Drouin probably has the most offensive potential of the four and Danault is a two-way beast who is already a Selke Trophy candidate.

There isn’t really a wrong answer if you only get to pick two from this group. I’d hang on to Drouin because he has the talent to be a top scorer on the team for several years. Danault is such an important part of a team and maybe isn’t a first line centre, but keeping him would give the team tremendous depth at centre with Danault, Suzuki and Kotkaniemi.

That leaves Domi and Tatar, the team’s last two leading scorers up for grabs. It would keep another defender in town, but I don’t think this scenario gets a lot of traction for Montreal. Losing Max Domi in an expansion draft to keep Mete would be catastrophic.

So, what is the most likely scenario?

Habs can protect UFAs without officially putting them on protection list.

Protecting seven forwards, three defenders and a goalie is what most teams will do. If the Habs are to protect the best at each position, they are likely to lose Victor Mete. They could elect to protect four forwards and four defencemen, but that would mean losing a great young forward so it’s not likely to happen.

To this point, we have basically assumed the Canadiens are going to re-sign all of their pending free agents. This list includes Gallagher, Tatar, Danault, Armia and Petry. Maybe the Habs want to, and will, re-sign all of these players but the timing of those contracts could give the Canadiens additional protection in the expansion draft.

The expansion draft is going to happen after the 2020-21 season and shortly before the 2021 NHL Draft and free agency. So, if the Habs are creative and smart about this, they can protect all of their potential free agents without actually putting them on a protection list officially.

For example: let’s say Marc Bergevin approached Gallagher and offers him a handsome contract extension for six years and $6.5 million per season. Gallagher thinks it is fantastic because he wants to stay in Montreal forever and, well, that’s a lot of money.

Here is how the team can get creative. Instead of signing that contract right away, they can ask Gallagher to wait until after the expansion draft. Then, they don’t protect Gallagher in the expansion draft. Now, the Kraken have to choose between Mete, who is signed, or Gallagher who is a free agent six days after the draft (and already agreed to stay in Montreal, though Seattle technically wouldn’t know that). Then, even if Seattle takes Gallagher, he can just refuse to sign with them for a few days and return to Montreal when free agency opens.

There is some risk to this strategy for Montreal. It is possible that Seattle takes Gallagher, offers him a ridiculous amount of money, and he has a change of heart and signs with the Kraken. However, there is far more risk for Seattle who would be passing on Mete and could likely end up with nothing if Gallagher goes to free agency.

Imagine if the Habs use this strategy with all of their UFAs. Suddenly, they can essentially protect 11 forwards, four defenceman and Carey Price.

Their official protection list would then be: Drouin, Domi, Kotkaniemi, Byron, Lehkonen, Jake Evans and Charles Hudon up front with Gallagher, Tatar, Armia and Danault unprotected, but also unrestricted free agents a few days later. If they all have extensions with the Habs in their pockets, the Habs have essentially protected 11 forwards. Heck, they could even sign Tatar and Armia ahead of time and protect them instead of Evans or Hudon.

On defence, this could leave Petry unprotected, but also not an enticing piece for the Kraken. So, the Habs could officially protect Weber, Juulsen and Mete while also having a deal negotiated with Petry.

In this scenario, the Kraken would have their choice of either Cale Fleury or Ben Chiarot. They wouldn’t be interested at all in any forwards available to them, and aren’t likely to want Charlie Lindgren either. They would probably settle on Chiarot who would have one year left on his contract and could fetch them a decent return at the trade deadline.