NHL Expansion Draft: Washington Capitals lose Philipp Grubauer
In Stars and Sticks’ first NHL expansion mock draft, the Washington Capitals will be losing a valuable young player.
The NHL hasn’t had an expansion draft in a little over 15 years. This summer, the Vegas Golden Knights will be joining the league as an expansion team. With a new team comes a new and improved version of the expansion draft. Every team, including the Washington Capitals, are going to lose someone. Some teams will lose better players than others.
It’s hard to predict precisely what the Golden Knights will do. Are they going to work to be competitive early? Do they outright tank? How is Vegas going to build their roster? The Golden Knights have a ton of options. For McPhee, this is a general manager’s dream. Usually, when you join a front office, you have to deal with the previous administration’s faults and bad contracts. McPhee is starting with as clean of a slate as possible.
The rules for the expansion draft can be found here. Vegas must select at least 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies. Teams must expose a goalie, but can choose to expose either 10 skaters (seven forwards and three defensemen) or eight skaters (four forwards and four defensemen). Also, teams must expose a certain number of players who fit the games played requirement of 40 games in the 2016-17 season or 70 over the past two. Vegas must draft at least 20 players who have a contract for the 2017-18 season (RFAs don’t have a deal for the 2017-18 season).
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This team will be built more for the future, but also with the present in mind. The Golden Knights have to build a strong foundation while also creating enough buzz in a new hockey market to get butts in seats. At the end of the day, that’s going to be very vital for them. Let’s start off with the Metropolitan Division.
The Washington Capitals will lose Philipp Grubauer to the Golden Knights. Nate Schmidt is another option, but Vegas won’t be able to resist a young goalie ready to prove he’s a number one starter. This is probably the best realistic case scenario for the Washington Capitals. They lose a guy who, considering his role on the team, is relatively easy to replace compared to other positions.
Washington Capitals fans rejoice as public enemy number one is out of the Eastern Conference again. Carl Hagelin is a very solid third line forward when he’s healthy. And he’s someone McPhee is familiar with.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are going to lose a pretty good player no matter what Vegas decides to do. Jonas Korpisalo is a very tempting option, but the Golden Knights can’t turn down a center with as much upside as Karlsson.
Devante Smith-Pelly is a bit of a broken player, but he at least has the ability to score. After a down season in 2016-17, perhaps DSP needs a change of scenery. The Devils don’t really have much to offer Vegas and Smith-Pelly at least has upside, unlike Ben Lovejoy.
Lee Stempniak is on a mission to play for every NHL team and the Vegas Golden Knights will happily help him on his noble quest.
Even if the New York Islanders protect four defensemen, Ryan Pulock might be left exposed. If he is left unprotected, he’ll get a well-deserved chance to play with the Golden Knights.
This could be a guy the Golden Knights pick exclusively to trade for a good draft pick. But even if they keep him, Michael Grabner can be an early mentor for the young guys in Vegas. He’s overcome a lot and certainly knows the devotion and commitment it takes to be successful in the NHL. Not only that, Grabner can be productive as well.
Ultimately, this came down to Matt Read or Scott Laughton. Vegas needs to be building for the future, so the latter is a better pick for them. Laughton should get some NHL playing time with the Golden Knights.
The Vegas Golden Knights will probably get a draft pick for not picking a better player than Beleskey. But he could wind up being a pretty solid player for them. As recently as the 2015-16 season, Beleskey was quite good. So he’s a pretty darn good guy to take a flyer on, especially if they can fool the Bruins into giving them a draft pick.
Vegas will get their second goaltender from the Buffalo Sabres. Linus Ullmark has a lot of potential and has just about every physical tool you want to see in a goalie. He could develop into a number one goalie, or at least a very good backup.
Why would the Golden Knights take someone who had just two goals last season? Because Riley Sheahan has proven to be a better scorer than this in the past. He has one year left on his deal, so Vegas will likely flip him by the trade deadline.
While the Florida Panthers will likely do something to make sure they don’t have to expose Jason Demers, right now the team has to either expose him or Aaron Ekblad. Demers is the obvious choice. He’d give Vegas a quality top four defenseman.
The Vegas Golden Knights simply aren’t going to be able to pass up on Charles Hudon. He has excellent AHL numbers, but has never been given an extended look in the NHL. Hudon is precisely the kind of player Vegas should be targeting.
Ottawa will either protect Marc Methot or Cody Ceci. My guess is they go with the latter. Whichever of the two they don’t protect, that’s who Vegas will go with. The Golden Knights should hope Methot isn’t protected because he’d give them a quality veteran defenseman.
Tampa Bay is going to lose a quality forward to the Vegas Golden Knights. Vladislav Namestnikov is a promising forward who has been a bit of a Swiss Army knife for the Lightning, filling in all over the lineup.
Vegas gets a promising young defenseman who has already proven he can capably handle a third pairing role.