The Oilers In An Expansion Draft

Whether or not you agree with it matters not, the NHL appears to be getting set to expand it’s ranks by two teams in the near future, likely for either the 2016/17 or 2017/18 season. Now, when the league expands, that means it’s also ushering in another expansion draft. That would impact the current NHL teams, as they would each lose multiple contracts.

For the Edmonton Oilers, what kind of impact will an expansion draft have? Which players would be subjected to poaching by the franchises from Quebec City and Las Vegas?

I went looking for, and found, the requirements for the 2000 NHL expansion draft, which was used for the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets. You can read all of the information here.

The Short Version:

If the NHL used the same format as it did back 15 years ago, each franchise would be allowed to protect players based on the following two plans. The first would allow a team to protect one goalie, five defenders and nine forwards. The other would allow for the protection of two goalies, three defenders and seven forwards.

Obviously, prospects in the junior and minor league ranks would be protected, so a team couldn’t poach a player like Darnell Nurse, Laurent Brossoit or Griffin Reinhart from the Oilers. That’s an important thing to remember.

Plan One:

If I’m a betting man, I would imagine Edmonton protects one goalie, five defenders and nine forwards. The guys they would keep? It was pretty easy to figure out.

Goalie – Cam Talbot

Defenders – Oscar Klefbom, Andrej Sekera, Mark Fayne, Eric Gryba, Justin Schultz

Forwards – Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Benoit Pouliot, Anton Lander, Nail Yakupov, Mark Letestu, Teddy Purcell, Lauri Korpikoski

Available Players – G Ben Scrivens, G Anders Nilsson, D Andrew Ference, D Nikita Nikitin, F Matt Hendricks, F Rob Klinkhammer, F Luke Gazdic, F Tyler Pitlick

It’s worth noting that McDavid, Draisaitl, Brossoit, Nurse, Reinhart and a plethora of other prospects would not require protection, they would not be eligible for the expansion draft. Those listed as available are based off of the NHL roster, and there could be more that I have missed.

Plan Two:

Goalie – Cam Talbot, Ben Scrivens

Defenders – Andrej Sekera, Oscar Klefbom, Justin Schultz

Forwards – Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov, Benoit Pouliot, Anton Lander, Teddy Purcell

Who Would Go?:

I think the players most likely to be selected would be Ben Scrivens, Nikita Nikitin, Andrew Ference and Matt Hendricks. Scrivens had a terrible 2014-15, but his track record suggests a player who could bounce back moving forward.

Nikitin will be better in 2015-16 just because he can’t be worse and, more importantly, he’ll be healthy going into camp. Teams love veteran leaders, so both Hendricks and Ference will be candidates. Plus, both of those guys will help the new franchises reach the cap floor right out of the gate.

Overview:

It’s a fun little exercise that actually turned out a little harder than I first realized it would be. The expansion rules from 2000 weren’t overly clear on prospects, and I had to do a little more digging.

It certainly seems like, to me at least, that players on entry-level deals and those that didn’t play a certain amount of games the prior year within a certain age were off limits. Again, it is an imperfect interpretation on my part, and the NHL may elect to go in a different direction in a year or two when expansion hits again.

That said, my point of this was the show what Edmonton could lose in the event of two new clubs. The Oilers would lose some bottom of the roster pieces, but nothing earth shattering. In fact, you could argue that shedding the contracts of Nikitin, Ference, Scrivens and Hendricks is actually beneficial to the Oilers.

We’re still a year or two out from this happening, if it ever does, but I thought it would be a cool little thing for us to look at in the middle of the summer.

Would you protect anyone different if you were running the show in Edmonton? Which plan would you have went with in terms of protecting players? Something to ponder….