Whether it’s announced this summer or next, NHL expansion is on the horizon.
Details emerged this morning from the NHL general manager meeting in Boca Raton, Florida regarding the NHL’s planned expansion and how a prospective expansion draft in the 2017 offseason would work.
General managers were informed that a decision on expansion will be made before June. As Darren Dreger outlined in a series of tweets, the next step in the process is for the NHL’s executive committee to make a recommendation on expansion. This executive committee can either choose not to pursue expansion or decide on whether to add one or two new teams to the league.
Las Vegas is the likeliest destination for a team, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time before the Quebec Nordiques are brought back into the fold via expansion or the relocation of an existing franchise.
If the league decides to expand by one, each NHL team can only lose one player in the expansion draft. If expansion involves two new teams, each team will lose two unprotected players
Each team will be presented with the opportunity to make one of two choices. It can either elect to protect three defencemen, seven forwards and one goaltender or it can elect to protect eight skaters and one goaltender.
Why would teams elect to choose the latter option and protect a fewer number of skaters?
It’s a quality over quantity predicament.
For a team like the Nashville Predators that has an embarrassment of riches on its blue lines, they may be intrigued by the latter option since they would be permitted to protect more defencemen. Conversely, teams that have a strong forward corps and a weak blue line may not want to expose more talented forwards at the expense of some weaker defensive alternatives.
Interestingly, the issue of no-movement clauses and no-trade clauses has been raised before. It was my understanding that the CBA details how expansion supersedes whatever clauses exist, but Elliotte Friedman indicated this morning that no-movement clauses will be respected.
NHL hasn’t decided on players with NMCs being eligible for expansion draft. But expectation is they will not be available for selection
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) March 16, 2016
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsNow whether these protected players are exempt from the entire process or count against the number of skaters who can be protected remains to be seen, but it’s an issue to be mindful of moving forward. It is also worth adding that players with less than three years of professional experience will be exempt.
Looking at the Senators’ roster composition, the only player who is protected by a no-movement clause is Dion Phaneuf. So if you’re like me or the Toronto Maple Leafs and you share a number of concerns regarding Phaneuf’s contract, age and the increased likelihood of diminishing returns, Friedman’s news will disappoint.
Working under the assumption that the Senators have to protect Phaneuf, if it elected to use the eight skaters and one goaltender model, the protection of Phaneuf and players like Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris, Craig Anderson and Mark Stone would be foregone conclusions. Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mika Zibanejad seem like pretty reasonable bets, so there are six names which leaves two available spots for some combination of players that includes Mike Hoffman (assuming he re-signs), Bobby Ryan, Clarke MacArthur, Zack Smith, Curtis Lazar, Cody Ceci and Marc Methot.
Under that model, valuable players would be left exposed, so it only makes sense to use the alternative model and protect a greater number of skaters.
If Phaneuf (NMC) and Karlsson are protected, that means one of Methot or Ceci have to be left unprotected on the blue line. Up front, the organization would likely protect Turris, Stone, Pageau, Zibanejad. In turn, the organization would have to pick three players from of MacArthur, Ryan, Hoffman, Lazar, and Smith.
Hoffman’s interesting because he’s the team’s leading goal scorer, but he only has one-year left of team control before he is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in 2017. Hopefully he re-signs, but if negotiations stall this summer and the Senators cannot reach a new agreement with him, I anticipate him being dealt this summer.
Clarke MacArthur’s situation is also intriguing to me because when healthy, he’s an incredibly effective player and one of the team’s best two-way players. On the other hand, after sustaining his third concussion in an 18-month period, MacArthur has only been able to suit up for four games this season.
He is eyeing a late-March or early-April timeline to return to the lineup, but given his injury history and the fact that he’s in the first year of his five-year contract that carries an average annual value of $4.65-million, the Senators may look at this as an opportunity to get out from under MacArthur’s contract.
There are merits to that line of thinking, but it’s not like poor performance is a motivating factor here. The main consideration is his health, but considering how his contract is insured and his salary will be covered in the event that he suffers another concussion, that risk is mitigated somewhat.
It is also possible that the risk of losing healthy MacArthur outweighs the risk of losing him at the expense of protecting one of the less talented alternatives. Granted, maybe it’s more preferable to have some sense of certainty here. As a small market club that cannot paper over another MacArthur injury, maybe the Sens would prefer to get MacArthur off the books and find a replacement rather than just be content with an insurance company paying MacArthur’s salary.
As one of the more marketable players on the team, the idea of losing Bobby Ryan would sting, especially in consideration of the price that Ottawa paid to bring him into the fold. Although he’s been one of the team’s more productive players over the past three seasons, the concerns for Ryan echo what I wrote about Phaneuf earlier in this piece, but Ryan does not have the luxury of a possessing a no-movement clause.
In other words, the Senators could start shopping Ryan this summer in hopes of extracting a larger return or they could try and squeeze one more year of productivity before deciding to cut bait when he turns 30 next season and expose him to the expansion process.
Lastly, the organization has expressed hesitation of moving defenceman Cody Ceci in a deal for the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jonathan Drouin, but thanks to this expansion process, maybe it will help open management’s eyes to the possibility of trading Ceci. If the alternative is going to be exposing Methot or him to the expansion process in 2017, maybe the Senators would prefer to cash in on Ceci’s value now while retaining a veteran like Methot. At least that way, the organization could protect itself against MacArthur’s health and Hoffman’s uncertain future with organization.
Bryan Murray’s Future:
According to a tweet from TSN’s Bob McKenzie earlier this week, Bryan Murray will spend the next month deciding his future.
None of that is to say that Murray has not already made up his mind.
In an interview on TSN 1200 in early February, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk acknowledged that he would be meeting with Murray later that month to discuss the future.
“Well, I’ll be meeting up with him. We just missed each other when I was in in Ottawa last time. I plan to meet up with him around the 15th or 16th of this month and have a sit down with him and see if he’s made a decision. If he hasn’t, that’s fine. We’ll wait as long as he wants to. He’s been very good about it in that he’s got succession planning in place already. He’s just got to tell us what he wants to do. He’s got an open ticket with me, so I don’t need to worry about anything with him. But, just get an update from him in a month and as soon as we decide… we have to do something before the draft. That’s the main thing, but we’ve got until June. So four months from maybe, but (a decision) could be in the next four weeks.”
If the succession planning is already in place — it’s pretty widely accepted that it will be Pierre Dorion ascending from his assistant general manager role with Murray stepping aside to become a consultant – whether it’s this year or next, it’s only a matter of time before Dorion gets that promotion.
So with that in mind, and the idea that Murray’s going to be around the team as a consultant, maybe it just makes (dollars and) sense for Murray to continue working in his current role.
The problem facing the organization is that Murray’s tenure has been marred by the fact the organization is no further ahead or further behind than the day he took over the club from John Muckler.
From desperately tried to cling onto its window of contention to its much celebrated decision to kick off a rebuild in 2011 to exceeding expectations and being more competitive faster than many anticipated, under Murray, this organization will have only won one playoff series in the nine seasons that he has been at the helm.
Obviously there are considerable circumstances under which he has had to operate. He inherited an organization whose poor decisions and draft record left the system dry and helped close the team’s window of contention before many even realized that it was shut. There were also the effects of working underneath a whimsical owner who imposed a stringent budget cannot be understated. And now Murray is left managing this hockey club while battling Stage-4 colon cancer.
Despite the situation, Murray has admirably never complained about the cards he’s been dealt and rarely, not many have publicly questioned his track record which is amazing in itself, considering how the organization has struggled to take the next step and move beyond being a playoff bubble team.
As much as I respect the man, raising the hockey community’s awareness of the importance of screening for cancer and the things that he has accomplished in this game, maybe it’s time for some new ideas and fresh voices inside the hockey operations department.
Other News and Notes:
Bryan Murray on the risk of losing a good young player to expansion: “Yeah you could but that’s okay. I’ve got a guy in mind right now.” — Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) March 16, 2016
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– The other important news coming out of today’s meetings was that the salary cap ceiling will either remain static at $71.4-million or be increased to $74-million. With rumours suggesting the Senators’ internal budget may be even lower than it was this season, this kind of cap ceiling increase would further widen gap between the Senators and the team’s highest spenders, which in turn, would increase the competitive advantage that the richer organizations have.
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