NHL expansion will spur trade market

If the NHL announces in June that it is expanding, look for a flurry of trades and a glut of available goalies.

The expansion process is finally picking up steam in the wake of this week's NHL general managers meetings.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman revealed on Wednesday that if the league decides to expand for the 2017-18 season, an announcement will happen before the upcoming entry draft in June. That timetable will ensure that a new franchise has sufficient time to prepare for an expansion draft in the summer of 2017.

And if that happens, we can expect plenty of player movement ahead. 

NHL mock expansion draft

Little is official at this point, but this much we know: Each existing team will be allowed to protect one goalie, seven forwards, and three defensemen, or one goalie and eight skaters in total ahead of a draft. Players in their first or second years in the pros (including time spent in the AHL) will be exempt. There's been no decision yet on the status of players who have no-movement clauses.

The two protection plans allow for some flexibility. A team deep in defense like Nashville might, for example, place more value on retaining a fourth blueliner than on its fifth, sixth and seventh forward. Another team might prefer to hold on to as many players as possible.

Still, either option will force most teams to make some very painful decisions. Which is exactly the point. This plan ensures that a solid pool of established veterans and promising prospects will be up for grabs. And that's good news for Las Vegas and/or Quebec City as they attempt to hit the ground running.

But planning for the consequences of an expansion draft means more than just the compilation of lists. We're likely to see a surge in trade activity as well. Given the alternative, it makes sense to turn at-risk assets into protectable futures like picks and unsigned prospects.

Much of that activity won't take place until after the 2017 Stanley Cup has been won and every organization is in a position to take stock of itself. But the impact will be felt ahead of the trade deadline, and possibly even sooner. It all comes down to assessing the market.

There will be good skaters to be had as teams decided who is and isn't expendable. But the real intrigue will surround the netminders.

NHL GMs on track with goalie gear, expansion draft ideas

Consider some of the keepers who could be in play over the next year as a result of the protect-one rule: Frederik Andersen (Anaheim); Mike Smith (Arizona), Malcolm Subban (Boston); Semyon Varlamov (Colorado); Antti Niemi and Jack Campbell (Dallas); Jimmy Howard (Detroit); Laurent Brossoit (Edmonton); Darcy Kuemper (Minnesota); Mike Condon (Montreal); J-F Berube (New York Islanders); MacKenzie Skapski (New York Rangers); Andrew Hammond (Ottawa); Marc-André Fleury (Pittsburgh); Philipp Grubauer (Washington); and Ondrej Pavelec and Michael Hutchinson (Winnipeg).

That's a deep list, and it doesn't even take into account those goalies whose current contracts will expire on July 1, 2017, a group that includes Scott Darling (Chicago), Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth (Philadelphia) and Brian Elliott (St. Louis).

There's a little bit of everything there, including Cup-winning experience and high-ceiling potential. But with so much supply, it's going to be a buyer's market.

Look for some wink-wink side deals as well, where teams will offer assets to an expansion squad to ensure they won't pick a certain player or prospect. The Capitals, for example, might offer a draft pick and a bad (but useful) contract like Brooks Orpik's as an incentive to leave the very promising Grubauer alone. The Sharks did just that back in 2000 by sending veteran Jan Caloun and two picks to Columbus to ensure that the Blue Jackets would not draft Evgeni Nabokov.

There's still plenty to be determined, but all signs point to a very busy year ahead.

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