Expansion Golden Knights make their roster choices
For the first time in 17 years, the National Hockey League held an Expansion Draft, with this particular one set to put together the inaugural roster of the Vegas Golden Knights.
The rules were simple: Each of the existing 30 teams could protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or one goaltender and eight skaters regardless of position. Players with less than two years of pro experience were exempt, and the Knights were required to take one player from each team.
So, how’d they do? Here are the results:
Jean-Francois Berube (NY Islanders), Marc-Andre Fleury (Pittsburgh), Calvin Pickard (Colorado).
Alexei Emelin (Montreal), Deryk Engelland (Calgary), Jason Garrison (Tampa Bay), Brayden McNabb (Los Angeles), Jon Merrill (New Jersey), Marc Methot (Ottawa), Colin Miller (Boston), Griffin Reinhart (Edmonton), Luca Sbisa (Vancouver), David Schlemko (San Jose), Nate Schmidt (Washington), Clayton Stoner (Anaheim), Trevor van Riemsdyk (Chicago).
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Philadelphia), Connor Brickley (Carolina), William Carrier (Buffalo), Cody Eakin (Dallas), Erik Haula (Minnesota), William Karlsson (Columbus), Brendan Leipsic (Toronto), Oscar Lindberg (NY Rangers), Jonathan Marchessault (Florida), James Neal (Nashville), Tomas Nosek (Detroit), David Perron (St. Louis), Teemu Pulkkinen (Arizona), Chris Thorburn (Winnipeg).
In addition, the NHL allowed teams to make side deals with Vegas so as to allow them to acquire assets in exchange for not selecting certain players. The Knights added two more first round picks — both in this year’s draft and in the top 15 — as well as four second round picks, one third rounder, and one each in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds of the upcoming four drafts.
They also added Panthers forward Reilly Smith, Wild forward Alex Tuch, Islanders defense prospect Jake Bischoff and Lightning forward prospect Nikita Gusev as well as the contracts of David Clarkson from Columbus and Mikhail Grabovski from the Islanders. None of the local teams were hit particularly hard — the Rangers seemed to be particularly spared with the selection of Lindberg in comparison to the possible losses of Jesper Fast, Michael Grabner or Antti Raanta — although the Islanders paid a hefty price to keep Vegas off their core group, including the loss of this year’s 15th overall pick.
In the short term, although the free agency period will bolster their roster, Vegas will struggle to be competitive in a very strong Western Conference. Several drafted players have already been moved out for yet more draft picks — van Riemsdyk (Carolina) and Schlemko (Montreal) were dealt on Thursday — but they should be able to build around veterans like Neal and Fleury, the latter of whom received the largest ovation from the T-Mobile Arena crowd when the long-time Penguins netminder was introduced.
“That was a warm welcome,” Fleury said. “It was time (to move on). I’ve been fortunate to play there for 14 years, but I’m very thankful for this opportunity to be in Vegas with a new team and a new organization. It was a big crowd tonight, and with the way our team is looking, I like it.”
The Expansion Draft was somewhat awkwardly sandwiched between announcements in the NHL Awards show, with groups of picks being revealed by owner Bill Foley and general manager George McPhee during breaks in the hardware being handed out.
That portion of the night was seemingly dominated by 20-year-old Edmonton Oilers forward Connor McDavid, who became only the third player in league history to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP before he turned 21. The others? Wayne Gretzky and Sidney Crosby.
“I’m sure tonight when I put my head on the pillow and go to sleep thinking about what happened, then it will all start to really sink in,” said McDavid, who also walked away with the Ted Lindsay Award as most valuable player as voted on by the NHLPA and the Art Ross Trophy for most points scored in a season.
“Now, it’s just a lot of hoopla with media and pictures and all that. To see the trophies up close and personal, touch them, get a picture with them, it makes it all a little bit more real. Today is a very special day in my life for sure.”