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?