NHL Expansion Draft: Washington Capitals lose Philipp Grubauer

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.