With the Vegas Golden Knights official inception less than a season away, just how could the team potentially look? I’ve included explanations for 30 picks with a final expansion roster.
It’s been quite awhile since there has been an NHL expansion, 17 years to be exact. A lot of people are excited but not with the fact there is a new team but the fact of wondering who will end up on it. So who could the Vegas Golden Knights go after? Well, there’s a lot of options and quite a few solid players with NMC’s or Limited NMC’s and with the league getting younger, a current NHL team may just ask a player to waive one of theirs in order to keep their team young and competitive.
In this article, we’re going to select a player from each team, show the depth chart from said team. However, the roster has to have at least 20 players under contract going into next year and the Knights have to draft a team of 30.
Anaheim Ducks:
Pick – Jakob Silfverberg
Jakob seems to be the biggest option coming from Anaheim if the team was to do a 4-4-1 scheme in order to protect Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Rickard Rakell, Kevin Bieksa (NMC), Hampus Lindholm, Cam Fowler, Sami Vatanen, and John Gibson. However, the team could always ask Bieksa to waive his NMC in order to protect the likes of Josh Manson.
Arizona Coyotes:
Pick – Mike Smith
With Arizona well underway of a full on youth movement, the team will most likely use a 4-4-1 scheme to hold onto Martin Hanzal (if not dealt before then), Tobias Rieder, Anthony Duclair (if not dealt also), Radim Vrbata, Alex Goligoski (NMC), Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Connor Murphy, Michael Stone, and Louis Domingue. And with young netminder Louis Domingue available all things point to them protecting him thus leaving Smith exposed. So this would be a great pickup for Vegas, they would need a starting goaltender and he’s signed through 2017 as well.
Boston Bruins:
Pick – Matt Beleskey
Matt Beleskey is a solid pick for the Knights, the Bruins are likely to do a 7-3-1 scheme to protect David Krejci (NMC), Patrice Bergeron (NMC), David Backes (NMC), Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Ryan Spooner, Jimmy Hayes, Zdeno Chara (NMC), Torey Krug, Joe Morrow, and Tuukka Rask. And with the team protecting goaltender Tuukka Rask. Malcolm Subban could always be an option as well, that is if Boston doesn’t use a conditional pick in order to protect him too. So the most likely pick would be a player like Beleskey who would help them reach the cap and has a contract in 2017.
Buffalo Sabres:
Pick – Nicolas Deslauriers
Buffalo has just as much offensive talent available as defensive so a 4-4-1 plan is the safest bet for the club. And with that scheme, they can protect Kyle Okposo (NMC), Tyler Ennis, Zemgus Girgensons, Evander Kane, Rasmus Ristolainen, Zach Bogosian, Dmitry Kulikov, Jake McCabe and Robin Lehner. This would leave a few significant players still exposed but that’s the rules of the game, so who would be the best pick of all those players? Nicolas Deslauriers, his salary is only $775 thousand and it runs into next season.
Calgary Flames:
Pick – Lance Bouma
Calgary has only a few defensive players worth protecting and the same goes for the forwards since their top young players are automatically exempt. So this leaves the Flames with a 4-4-1 protection scheme. This plan allows them to protect Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Sam Bennett, Mikael Backlund, Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Dougie Hamilton, Jyrki Jokipakka, and Chad Johnson. So a who is left is quite thin and also quite old, so the best choice for the Knights would be someone like Lance Bouma who can play either wing or center.