News Article: Bettman has changed his tune on NHL expansion

Sleeping Dog

Fan Since ‘68
Sep 21, 2013
2,174
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LBC
Probably 1g, 5d, and 9f.

Drop 2d and 2f to protect a second goalie.

Very speculative at this time - but I'd figure that Martin Jones would be a target for these teams.

Also, if both Seattle and Vegas join the Pacific - the Kings will probably be hitting 120 points in regular season.
 

redcard

System Poster
Mar 12, 2007
7,216
5,605
Speculation or not, we all knew expansion was coming as soon as they created uneven conferences.
 

kovacro

Uvijek Vjerni
Nov 20, 2008
9,802
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Hamilton, ON
Talk about diluting the talent pool even further. Yuck. :shakehead

Maybe the NHL should try to strengthen markets in places like Florida and Arizona before talking expansion but I guess it all comes down to the mighty dollar and how much more the league can fill its pockets with a large expansion fee.

A earlier poster mentioned Atlanta. With all due respect, that city has struck out twice before. There is no way the NHL should revisit that market.
 

Ron*

Guest
Talk about diluting the talent pool even further. Yuck. :shakehead

Maybe the NHL should try to strengthen markets in places like Florida and Arizona before talking expansion but I guess it all comes down to the mighty dollar and how much more the league can fill its pockets with a large expansion fee.

A earlier poster mentioned Atlanta. With all due respect, that city has struck out twice before. There is no way the NHL should revisit that market.

Florida has had it, they are ripe for relocation. So is Arizona in four years.

As I said earlier, pretty sure BigHurt was joking. Atlanta isn't getting a third shot. Neither is Winnipeg if they strike out again.
 

DocWest

Rock Bottom
Oct 21, 2010
12,300
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Los Angeles
Very speculative at this time - but I'd figure that Martin Jones would be a target for these teams.

Also, if both Seattle and Vegas join the Pacific - the Kings will probably be hitting 120 points in regular season.
Ugh, the thought of that makes me want to puke. They should go after John "Jesus" Gibson or Andersen instead.
 

KopitarFAN

Reno Sucks!
Oct 14, 2008
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Probably 1g, 5d, and 9f.

Drop 2d and 2f to protect a second goalie.

If I recall correctly, because they did an expansion mock for a fictional Seattle team a year ago on SBNation, you can only take one player from each team. Now, obviously if Seattle & Vegas got teams, their would be 2 expansion drafts, thus, teams could lose 2 players.
 

Captain Mittens*

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KopitarFAN

Reno Sucks!
Oct 14, 2008
13,572
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San Pedro, CA
Ugh, the thought of that makes me want to puke. They should go after John "Jesus" Gibson or Andersen instead.

By the 2016 off-season, I gotta think Jones is gonna want a shot to start somewhere.

That's why it's great to have Berube having completed first AHL season in April, and Bartosak going into his first pro season, presumably the ECHL.
 

Brodeur

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
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San Diego
I can't remember; how many players can we protect if two teams come in at the same time?

Expansion draft rules will probably be different from the last batch. If only because free agency changed since the late 90s. Teams have more UFAs that wouldn't need protecting.

But for the last expansion, teams could protect:

- 1 goalie, 5 D, 9 forwards
- 2 goalies, 3 D, 7 forwards

In the year where Columbus/Minnesota came in, teams couldn't lose a goalie and a defenseman. But I'd expect those numbers to be tweaked slightly for the next hypothetical round of expansion. Many teams simply wouldn't have 9 veteran forwards to protect. Expansion clubs in the past used to be willing to take a UFA to garner a compensatory pick if/when they signed elsewhere, but those picks were done away with in 2005.
 

johnjm22

Pseudo Intellectual
Aug 2, 2005
19,774
15,267
I'm all for expanding and exposing the game to new people.

There's risk involved of course, but the potential rewards outweigh the potential losses IMO. Nashville is a great example.
 

Tadite

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Feb 27, 2002
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This is super insane! Why on earth!

As for the expansion draft remember that players on the ELC can't be picked. The timing is a problem for the Kings. Lots of UFA at the end of the season and worse both TT and Pearson are RFA and off their ELC.

Players on the ELC can't be picked so if this actually happens way down the line in 16/17 then the whole world/team looks different.... We could conceivably have 3-4 guys coming up that year if not more. Lots of rookies make it easier to hide from the expansion draft.

I
 

Brodeur

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
26,115
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San Diego
This is super insane! Why on earth!

As for the expansion draft remember that players on the ELC can't be picked. The timing is a problem for the Kings. Lots of UFA at the end of the season and worse both TT and Pearson are RFA and off their ELC.

Players on the ELC can't be picked so if this actually happens way down the line in 16/17 then the whole world/team looks different.... We could conceivably have 3-4 guys coming up that year if not more. Lots of rookies make it easier to hide from the expansion draft.

Kings would be one of the few teams in a tough spot. Reminds me a lot of the Devils from 1998-00 when we had tremendous depth. Devils had to make some trades to minimize the losses. Notably, they traded Brendan Morrison and Denis Pederson for Alexander Mogilny which opened up one protection spot. Brian Rolston was moved for Claude Lemieux and a pick; Lemieux was an impending UFA and didn't need to be protected. And they gave up a former first rounder Vadim Sharifjianov for a draft pick; Sharifijanov more or less immediately flamed out afterwards, but at the time he looked like a useful player.

Expansion wouldn't be on the horizon for a couple years, so Lombardi and company will have time to figure out a plan.
 

kingsfan

President of the Todd McLellan fan club by default
Mar 18, 2002
13,384
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Manitoba, Canada
This is super insane! Why on earth!

As for the expansion draft remember that players on the ELC can't be picked. The timing is a problem for the Kings. Lots of UFA at the end of the season and worse both TT and Pearson are RFA and off their ELC.

Players on the ELC can't be picked so if this actually happens way down the line in 16/17 then the whole world/team looks different.... We could conceivably have 3-4 guys coming up that year if not more. Lots of rookies make it easier to hide from the expansion draft.

I

In the past players on ELC's can't be picked. The NHl sets the rules for the expansion draft and really if they wanted they could let expansion teams pick whatever they wanted. Obviously, odds are they will go with rules very similar to the past but right now, we don't know if there will be expansion, let alone the rules for it.

Additionally, odds are the league will make it mandatory teams have at least one (or some other) minimum number of players made available per position. If I recall correctly, the NHL did just with goaltenders one year, which was why we ended up playing Frederic Chabot in 1998, just so he'd have enough minimum games played so we could expose him and not Fiset or Storr. Having a number of rookies likely would still mean we'd have to find someone to expose.

That all said, if the expansion draft is in the summer of 2016 at the erliest, which seems to fall in line with past expansions where the NHL gave over a full years notice of a new team coming in, the Kings should be fine. Likely guys like Toffoli and Pearson won't need to be protected, and usually one or two guys in their mid-30's starts to see a production decline and gets exposed as well. If it's a 9f -5d -1g system, the Kings would likely lose someone like a Matt Greene or a Trevor Lewis or Jarrett Stoll, maybe Martin Jones if he's eligible to be picked. Good foot soldiers and important pieces, but hardly crippling and considering the expansion teams typically want to build around a core of youth DL could simply let the expansion team pick one of those players and immediately flip them a draft pick to get them back. A 2nd rounder would likely return any one of those players to the Kings.
 

Brodeur

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
26,115
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San Diego
Additionally, odds are the league will make it mandatory teams have at least one (or some other) minimum number of players made available per position. If I recall correctly, the NHL did just with goaltenders one year, which was why we ended up playing Frederic Chabot in 1998, just so he'd have enough minimum games played so we could expose him and not Fiset or Storr. Having a number of rookies likely would still mean we'd have to find someone to expose.

The other facet with Chabot was that there was a rule where you couldn't lose a goalie in back-to-back years. So in 1999, the Kings only had to protect one goalie but both Fiset/Storr were ineligible to be taken. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a rule like that if this proposed expansion happens over two years.
 

Reclamation Project

Cut It All Right In Two
Jul 6, 2011
34,135
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Yeah, I was worried there would be a lone thread in our section devoid of Mike Richards. Glad everyone pulled through and made sure that didn't happen.
 

kingsfan

President of the Todd McLellan fan club by default
Mar 18, 2002
13,384
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Manitoba, Canada
It doesn't seem to make much sense to me to put a brand new franchise in a city where there has never been a professional sports teams.

Every city that has a franchise had to have one of those franchise break ground. One reason the NHL can't make hay in some markets is that they were 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even later on the list of franchises to come into that market. Being the first one in lets you make fans without any competition. That's a good thing, especially in a city like Las Vegas where hockey isn't as well known about as say Seattle/Portland and definitely not as much as Quebec City or Toronto.
 

Captain Mittens*

Guest
It doesn't seem to make much sense to me to put a brand new franchise in a city where there has never been a professional sports teams.

I don't think San Jose had a professional sports team before the Sharks?
I don't think Sac had a professional sports team before that basketball team that can't think of it's own name.
 

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