theo5789

I'm curious how the Bo contract will have an effect or not. Bo's deal is incredibly team friendly at this point. Does Benning negotiate contracts around this (no one should be getting more than our best player type thing) or does Benning have to negotiate based on the league? Boeser may be able to get up to 8 million a season or more comparatively to the league, but if I were to have it relative to Bo, then he's looking at maybe 6-6.5 million a season. This will have a huge impact towards building a winner with depth.

If Seattle is willing to take it, then great, but it's pretty clear that any move to rid ourselves of Eriksson will be a cap dump which is a negative in any trade, so I personally cannot see them taking him on and doing us a favour on top. It's arguable if he's worth that salary now, but once the expansion happens, he will be 35 years old I believe and his numbers may only continue to drop off (on pace for 34 points this year). The rest of the game he provides is simply a justification of his value (since he isn't providing the real value he was brought in for), but there are better role players than him for a bottom 6 role that may or may not come cheaper and plenty will be available from the expansion draft itself. I think quite highly of Benning already, but if he can pull this off, then he would be next level.

Can't see this happening. It'll be a cap dump for us even at 50%. They'll have the opportunity to draft a bunch of bottom tier forwards in the expansion and likely won't need to make a trade to fill another spot only to take a player of our choice which likely be the bottom of the barrel. Vegas generally drafted mid-20 guys unless they were significant players like Neal or Fluery or if they had made a deal to take on someone like Garrison, but Tampa paid a hefty price at the time to make it happen. We would likely have to pay to offload Eriksson.

Different situation, we were pretty much in the early stages of a rebuild at that point so there wasn't a lot going on for us that gave teams value. I believe we were actually figuring out if we could meet the minimum requirement. But because of the stage in the rebuild, we were also able to move expansion eligible players for assets at the deadline so we didn't have to risk much by the time the draft came. By the upcoming expansion, we should hopefully be much closer to where we hope to be as a playoff team. We will certainly lose someone of decent value, but I feel we should just cut our losses and move on instead of making moves to protect more players (maybe guys that don't even pan out even a few years later) and take on a bigger loss especially if the player we also lose suddenly finds a spark on a new team. The only ones worth protecting at this point are Horvat, Pettersson, Boeser, Virtanen, Hughes, Juolevi and Demko. That leaves 3 more forwards and a dman which will be determined over the next couple of years.

I agree, but it also gives us the depth to potentially make a move that can help in another area of team need. Good two-way centers are a hot commodity. I'd love to keep Gaudette, but my point is that Madden's progress could help lessen the blow should we have to lose someone like Gaudette.

Depends who we are trying to protect. Sometimes one team's scraps is another team's treasure. Look at pretty much every trade that Vegas made in regards to teams trying to protect players or to ensure Vegas took a certain player. They are almost all heavily favoured towards Vegas. So we could lose someone that will flourish and give up a 2nd rounder as well. I think we just need to continue to draft well and if we lose our 8th best forward or 4th best dman, then we have some internal contingency plan to mitigate the loss and only suffer the loss of one asset.

I was thinking there's no way there's someone with that name and maybe it was a nickname. Turns out I was wrong.

He might make a future loss of someone like Gaudette (trade/expansion) not hurt so much.

Love Stecher, but he's a bottom pairing dman and not worth a protection spot IMO. I would much rather protect Hutton at this point as he's shown to be able to handle top 4 minutes currently. But if Hutton is the player we lose, I'm not going to be too upset and certainly wouldn't make any additional moves to ensure he is protected. Hughes (he may be able to play RD as well), Juolevi, Brisebois and even Rathbone are coming up the left side anyway plus potentially Edler re-signing.

If he's ready to play and willing, you give him the same treatment as other college players. I believe Benning said this is the new norm now. So no point potentially upsetting one your top prospects over this. Ideally Hughes would sign an ATO with Utica and play out the year there before making the jump, which I believe Werenski did (and assuming his year is done before ours ends), but if he doesn't then we will be fine either way. At worst we lose our #4 dman which won't affect our rebuild as long as we continue to draft well.

Sorry Quinn, but I hope your wish doesn't come true. You can have bronze though (no one wants the loser silver medal).

I don't think we have enough depth to worry about losing a guy like Gaudette unless there are some big surprises in the next couple of years (and that's not a bad thing). If Goldobin is the worst case scenario, I'm fine with that, but I have a suspicion that he might be gone by then and perhaps someone like Dahlen will have taken over already who I would probably protect.

Hughes, Juolevi for sure. We will have to see how players progress by the expansion for the 3rd player. I don't think I'll be worried losing any of Tanev, Hutton or Stecher at this point and they will only be older by then.

We will still have Rathbone, Woo, plus whoever we draft or sign in the next couple of years. I like Brisebois and Chatfield, but I'm not going to lose any sleep if they get taken in the expansion at this point. We will see where they are at in a couple more seasons. There's always the option to leave someone exposed that would be hard for them to pass on which effectively protects everyone else. Not sure who that would be just yet.

Honestly I wouldn't be worried about the expansion. I mean we should plan for it, but not let it dictate the direction of the team (make Hughes not play pro this year, etc). If we have too many good players that we might lose our 8th best forward or 4th best dman, then so be it. It also would mean our team is in a position that we are good enough to actually lose a decent player, which to me is a positive sign for our rebuild. We shouldn't be in fear of losing anyone. Vegas capitalized on this fear and were able to make many favourable deals that in the end bit those teams in the rear more so than benefitting them by being to protect more guys. I believe Columbus made a deal, only to make sure they picked Karlsson (or other options as well I believe) and look how that worked out. Florida traded Reilly Smith and let them pick up Marchessault, look how that worked out. And this list goes on. Just let them pick whoever and move on, so even if they do end up taking a decent player from us, at least it's one player versus potentially a good player and other assets on top of that.

Gotta love how Juolevi's career is being defined 18 games into a 76 game season as a 20 year old.

* All players who have currently effective and continuing “No Movement” clauses at the time of the Expansion Draft (and who decline to waive such clauses) must be protected (and will be counted toward their club’s applicable protection limits). Eriksson will be under a NTC at that point.

I'm curious if we can have handshake agreements to sign these guys after the expansion draft to allow us more space to protect players. They will have an early window to sign UFAs, but it comes down to if the player wants to even sign there.

If Goldobin is still with the team by then, he will likely have upped his game a bit and will likely be worthy of a protected spot over Lind and Gadjovich. I would protect Gudbranson over Stecher, but I'm not sure about Hutton as it depends on his progression. I do think we should maybe trade Hutton at some point sooner than later while his value is still high though with Hughes and Juolevi coming up soon. If Gudbranson is available, I think they take him. With all this said, the lesson learned from last expansion is that it's not really worth giving up assets to protect your players. Just let them take the one player, whoever it may be and as much as it'll hurt, but they can only punish you once. At the end of the day, you should have protected your very top guys anyway and they get one of your quality depth who may or may not excel in a new role on a new team. I'm curious if Tryamkin makes a return, would he need to be protected as I would for sure if he does.

It's far too early to decide as it's still a couple more seasons after this one. With that said, I don't think we need to protect Eriksson because it's a NTC not a NMC.

Juolevi is 6'3 and nearly 200lbs, in comparison Edler is 6'3 212lbs currently. Juolevi doesn't play an overly physical game, but I'm not sure if Edler did coming into the league as well. So I'm not too concerned about his size/"man strength". He is adjusting to the pace of the game at the higher level and he seems like more of a cerebral player. Personally I see more of scenario 3 right now and that's why I'm not that concerned. Although those scenarios seem to demonstrate the differing opinions of Juolevi and how they feel about him currently.

Maybe so, but lots of young guys get the easier minutes while gradually learning how to play the harder minutes. They want him to improve defensively as we all do, but why not let him get comfortable playing first and find a role for him to progress into? It's all about trying to build the confidence so the player doesn't have to overthink. He could still be a top pairing guy like Edler that excels being partnered with a more steady defensive dman like Tanev/Gudbranson or Woo in the future. It wouldn't shock me if the top 4 in the near future is Hughes-Gudbranson and Juolevi-Woo. Add in Rathbone/Brisebois with Stecher/Chatfield to round out the bottom pairing. If we are pumping his tires for a trade, what are we looking for? We need more quality dmen and trading him would seem counterproductive after the development we have put into him IMO.

Rodin minus the injuries was an SHL MVP. He was progressing into a very good player until those injuries happened, so I think I would be quite happy if Dahlen does end up being Rodin 2.0 minus the injuries.

Have to wonder how he would do feeding Boeser and Pettersson.

He seems like a strong character guy, but he's also a big family guy. Hopefully he's committed to the team that saw something in him before he even showcased himself on a bigger stage and drafted him much like how Gaudette felt.