If you want the teams to be able to be competitive quickly - I don't see how letting them keep more than 3Dmen or 4Fs is gonna' work, particularly if you're exempting the younger kids. Sure, they'll be better than we were with the dregs and trash we collected from everyone's 4th line and 3rd pairs, but they still would be several years away from finding anything remotely qualified to make one line of a top 6 or first pair.
They gotta' be able to take a few top 4 Dmen from somewhere (obviously us, which none of us want to see) and a few 2nd liners to go with the depth guy and few kids they'll scrape up. Gonna' be particularly hard if there are 2 expansion teams. Outta' the dregs, what did we get - two players (walker and Johnson) & Dunham? and from the kids Poile grabbed, a couple (kimmo - as comp for not taking whoever, Vokoun, and.....Daigneault and Brunette who never suited up for us.)? The rest - in the league cause there were more teams, not cause they would have been on someone else's roster, like the one-season wonder that was sergei krivakrasov - also a comp trade for not taking somebody. Mike Sullivan was the 3rd best F we got - how long is it taking you to be competitive when all you got to start with is Dunham, Kimmo, and those 4 Fs?
Any player who has played more than 2 years in the pros, which includes Milwaukee, will be open for the draft. So after next season, Fiala, Kamenev and Saros are available. Poole has to make a decision if he wants to protect any or all of them.
To me it's:
Johansen
Forsberg
Weber
Josi
Ekholm
Fiala
Kamenev
Neal
Smith
Take your pic between Arvy, Jarnkrok, Salomaki, Wilson
Take your pic between Rinne and Saros
If you keep Ellis you can protect 4 forwards and I think we're better off protecting 7 forwards even if the 7th forward isn't better than Ellis because our 5 and 6 forwards are better than Ellis .
We have to remember if Vesey signs here he should be exempt as he wouldn't have enough games to be considered a 2 year pro. Now if Fiala and Kamenev are borderline because they need a certain amount of games and are exempt as well then you can go keep the 8 skater route and hang on to Ellis.
Fiala is a top 6 forward and Kamenev is probably our number 2 center moving forward. Neal is still too valuable at this point as is Smith.
I think this team would have an easier time finding a replacement for Ellis than some of the forwards listed above.
And the 7th forward keeper I'd seriously consider keeping Salomaki over Arvy and Jarnkrok, especially if Fiala and Vesey pan out.