I mean, nothing is set in stone - Armstrong could be super ballsy and leave Krug unprotected - basically daring Seattle to take on a huge contract from a guy who didn't look so great this year. Another interesting factor is if we sign Schwartz before or after the expansion draft - I think Army is wise to play this season out either way before signing him, Schwartz has frankly already cost himself a decent chunk of change with his lack of production this year. I figured his contract would be something in the area of 7x7 or 6x7.5, giving him an equal AAV to Tarasenko....now I think he's looking at a 5x6 or at best a 6x6 as this is his second year out of the last three where he can't score worth beans. I know he does a lot of other stuff for the team, but you still gotta score goals to get paid. My protection list goes something like:
FORWARDS:
ROR
Perron
Tarasenko
Schwartz
Schenn
Thomas
Kyrou
Notable Unprotected - Sunny, Sanford, Blais, Barbashev. The clear choices here for Seattle are Sunny or Sanford if they decide to go with a forward. I think Sunny's knee injury might factor in a bit, I'd be hesitant to take a guy who's coming off major knee surgery unless he's a clear gamebreaker compared to the other guy.....which Sunny isn't compared to Sanford. We all like Sunny more b/c he looks like he tries all the time vs. Sanford's loafing, but Sunny and Sanford are remarkably similar in the way we deploy them, with Sanford starting games on top lines but Sunny generally ending games on top lines. They both average around 15 minutes of ice time, with Sanford getting a little more EV and PP time, but Sunny getting more PK time. If we don't resign Schwartz, we can protect one of the them instead, depending on who we value more.
DEFENSE:
Parayko
Faulk
Krug
Notable Unprotected - Dunn, Scandella, Bortuzzo. The clear choice here is Dunn - overall the clear choice from our team is Dunn, unless there's a huge glut of defenseman available. He's young, cost controlled, and has won a Stanley Cup while playing somewhat sheltered minutes. Is he the guy who's going to succeed on your top pairing? Of course not. But you're not going to get many (or probably any) of those guys in an expansion draft. It's BPA, and Dunn is clearly BPA from the "expected" list of protected players.
GOALIE:
Binnington
Notable Unprotected - Husso. Pretty much a no brainer here. Husso might get picked, and if he does, we should all thank Seattle heartily. Not b/c Husso is worthless, but b/c they're passing on a ton of other, better players that are far more important to our success.
Overall, the only things I can see changing from this list are:
1. Schwartz waiting to get resigned - don't think this will matter much, b/c Seattle will likely take Dunn whether Sunny is available or not.
2. We expose Krug over Dunn. I'm not sure how I feel about this overall. Krug has looked pretty poor here at times, but he wasn't supposed to be a top pairing defenseman going up against the opponents top players - that was supposed to be Parayko/Scandella. He's looked much better since Parayko came back. But, unless we want to trade an asset (prospect/pick) b/c we're sure we want Dunn too, the only way I see us keeping Dunn is by protecting him and hoping Seattle takes Sanford over Krug....but again, if it's BPA, Krug is clearly better then Sanford, contract or not.
TLDR - We're most likely to lose Dunn in the expansion draft unless we make a trade prior to protect him, or for some reason Seattle REALLY doesn't want Krug, or they REALLY want Sunny/Sanford. I like Dunn quite a bit, but I don't think he's shown enough to be a Top 4 guy consistently.
