Arizona Coyotes: Preparing For An Expansion Draft
The Arizona Coyotes and the rest of the NHL are potentially headed down the path of expansion, which lead to an expansion draft and the necessity to lock up certain players from prying eyes.
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?
Good news? Ok; the Coyotes aren’t going to be relocating anywhere outside of the Valley anytime soon!
The bad news? Not moving out of the Valley will cost the Arizona Coyotes two players.
The National Hockey League recently announced the ground rules for a 2016 NHL Expansion Draft, should the commissioner Gary Bettman and his clan of general managers opt to admit Las Vegas and/or Quebec City into the league’s guild of franchises.
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In short, the league specified that either five forwards and three defenseman can be protected or eight total skaters of any position can be screened from the expansion franchises’ newly crowned GMs. Only one goaltender can be salvaged from possibly being head-hunted. The league also specified that first and second-year professional players are exempt from the Expansion Draft.
However, two key points that the early rules released did not mention is whether players with No-Trade or No-Movement Clauses (NTC/NMC’s) are protected from expansion drafting. That specific rule doesn’t necessarily impact the Coyotes too heavily, although it does impact how the entire league will go about signing restricted and unrestricted free agents.
The other key point to note is how restricted and unrestricted free agencies will operate given an expansion draft. This point heavily affects how the Coyotes manage who they protect.
In this study, I will assume the league will not honor NTC/NMC’s because it will force teams to cover there best players and therefore force teams like Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, Anaheim and New York to share some of their talent…forcefully.
I’m also under the assumption that both Las Vegas and Quebec City will be awarded franchises and that restricted free agents are unprotected because, as previous expansion drafts have demonstrated, new teams need youth to be competitive in the NHL so forcing teams to decide on which RFA’s to cover makes the new teams more realistic.
Furthermore, I outline the unrestricted free agent process as: 1) teams can attempt to sign their own departing free agents or let them walk, 2) newly established franchises have a one day jump start on courting newly disenfranchised free agents and then, 3) all teams can get in on the free agent free for all. Moreover, I am writing under the assumption that teams who sign expiring UFA’s which were previously on their rosters have automatic protection of said players because otherwise teams would not risk signing any UFA’s at all.
Also worth noting is that teams with players bound to depart as UFA/RFA’s count as expansion draft eligible players, meaning that an expansion team can draft that player’s negotiating rights to become their own in hopes of signing that player instead of picking up a contract for a player from another team that the expansion team didn’t negotiate. This rule makes sense because it could strategically prevent the other expansion team from attempting to negotiate a contract in the early expansion team free agent market.
As a general disclaimer, all of the salary cap and contract situation information was extrapolated from General Fanager.
With that mouthful said, here’s a breakdown of who gets resigned and therefore protected, who the Coyotes must outright protect, who the Yotes leave exposed and, finally, who is most likely to get head-hunted.
Next: Protected Resigned UFA Players
Arizona Coyotes Protected via UFA Resign Clause:
One of the names on this list should not surprise any Coyotes fan, let alone any person who follows the NHL with moderate intensity. Shane Doan is a Coyote. He will be a Coyote next season. He will be a Coyote until he decides he does’t want to play professional hockey anymore.
It is really that simple.
But the other two may need a little more explaining.
Alex Tanguay was a toss in from the Mikkel Boedker trade, most likely because the Arizona Coyotes wanted to float themselves a little higher above the cap floor and Colorado wanted to give themselves more flexibility. Moreover, Colorado most likely knew they didn’t want to resign him.
I guess the Avs didn’t know what they were giving up until it was too late. During Tanguay’s short tenure with the Coyotes, #40 has posted as many goals in Arizona as he did in Colorado in 1/5th as many games. Moreover, Tanguay is posting a positive +/- and is making the Coyotes’ power play click, which is more than any of us can say about Mikkel Boedker’s PP time this season.
And hey, guess what; as self-appointed Assistant GM of the Arizona Coyotes, I don’t only want to resign him, but I want to give him a two-year contract and keep him around awhile. I like his grit, I like his leadership and I think he makes Antoine Vermette and Anthony Duclair better hockey players. To me, Tanguay hanging around is a no-brainer.
But Boyd Gordon is even more complex to the untrained eye. Gordon is an aging fourth line center with limited scoring talent. He is no Jaromir Jagr or Jarome Iginla. But neither of those two semi-elderly gentlemen win nearly 60% of their face-offs (although neither are actually Centers, the comparison was more about age). Gordon plays solid penalty kill time and does a pretty decent job of it.
On top of that, Gordy is still an absolute stud of a centerman and in my mind. He absolutely deserves another one year contract with bloated cash earnings to keep the Arizona Coyotes sneaking in above the rising salary cap floor.
Next: Protected First- and Second-Year Players
Arizona Coyotes Protected via First- or Second-Year Professional Player Clause:
- C Max Domi
- LW Anthony Duclair
- LW Jordan Martinook
This section should honestly not surprise any of us. These three are all solid-to-all star NHL players in the making.
Anthony Duclair and Max Domi are the future of the Arizona Coyotes franchise up front. These two quarterback the power play, whether split up between the two units or in tandem on the first unit. Beyond that, Domi is in his first and Duclair in his second year of professional hockey, and therefore, are not eligible to be relocated forcefully to the Mohave Desert or French Canada.
Jordan Martinook also falls into this protection category because of this season being his second profession contract year, according to General Fanager.
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Beyond the first/second year player clause in the draft rules already released by the league, Martinook has become a mainstay on the penalty kill and has shown promise as a third/fourth line forward with strong onsets of speed and stick handling. He gives 110% every night, and players who leave everything they possibly have on the ice every night are not expendable.
In my eyes, Jordan Martinook is the second coming of Shane Doan, and therefore should be given tenure and reverence.
On top of those three, there is a laundry list of minor league prospects who would be exempt from expansion draft hands, including Dylan Strome, Christian Dvorak, Dakota Mermis, Nicholas Merkley and Brendan Perlini.
All of these players listed, and some other lower level prospects, are in the first two or less years of their professional contracts (or soon to be drawn up contracts, in the case of Strome) and therefore free to roam about the Coyotes organization and not, as an old Southwest Airlines commercial said, “free to roam about the country[ies]” to Las Vegas and Quebec City.
Next: Protected Players by Choice
Arizona Coyotes Protected via Organizational Choice:
Here was the hard part for me. I’m sure it will be for GM Don Maloney too should an expansion come into reality.
There are two ways to play your cards in this situation; protect four of each skater types or eight of whomever you value most. With Shane Doan being a non-factor (at least in the case of the rules in which I’m operating under), I quickly tabbed centers Antoine Vermette and Martin Hanzal as protected and obviously kept Oliver Ekman-Larsson on a leash as well. Those three, along with Doan are the core of the organization.
None of them, in my eyes, can be lost under any circumstance other than untimely injuries.
Here’s the full list:
-Forwards
- C Antoine Vermette
- RW Tobias Rieder
- C Martin Hanzal
-Defenseman
-Goaltender
So, with two forwards and one defenseman covered, I literally spent time researching who becomes a free agent when, contracts and all kinds of stats.
What I found was that much of the Arizona Coyotes offensive firepower is protected without me doing a thing (cc: Max Domi, Anthony Duclair, Dylan Strome, Christian Dvorak), so I ended up giving protectionary preference to the defense and with so many defensemen coming up against their restricted free agent seasons, I didn’t want to let the youth and raw talent escape.
I chose to utilize the “pick any eight skaters, get the goalie free” scheme, tabbing, along with OEL, the currently contracted Zybnek Michalek, as well as RFAs Kevin Connauton, Connor Murphy and Michael Stone. If any one of those five, especially Stone and Ekman-Larsson, were to be torn away for a new life of endless casinos or poutine stands, the amount of damage done to the organization would take a decade to replace.
On top of that, if you considered what little defensive depth the Arizona Coyotes currently have then you would know that all of the offensive talent the franchise has amassed would be useless if the team can’t stop a puck behind their own blue line.
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With those players given more sun screen for their stay in the Sonoran Desert, that leaves one goalie spot and one skater spot left unreserved. The obvious goaltender is Mike Smith.
Through his ups and downs, which more often than not seem to be every other week (when he isn’t riding the bench on the injured reserve), Smitty is the best goalie in the organization right now. Its unavoidable and on top of that, he has a bloated, long term contract that is pretty hard to ditch. But, the flip side would be that GMDM could ditch that crappy contract on a reboot “Nordiques” club or a startup “Whatever-Las-Vegas-Ends-Up-Being-Named” club.
The problem with that is our starting goalie would be Louis Domingue. Domingue is a great goaltender, don’t get me wrong. He deserves a lot of props for his time and dedication, especially the effort he put in for the Coyotes this season. But I just can’t see dumping a whole team’s bright future in his breadbasket. At least not yet.
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Moreover, even if Maloney floated Smith as an expansion draft eligible player, I honestly don’t think a mid-to-late career, streaky goalie is on the top of a new GM’s ‘To-Do’ list. More likely than not, a young, pending-RFA goalie resides on the top of that list, say Michael Hutchinson or Fredrik Andersen. So, for the sake of realism, I tabbed Smitty as my reserved goaltender.
That leaves one skater spot left and the two most obvious players to chose between are Tobias Rieder and Brad Richardson. Both are excellent players. Both have contributed greatly to the team this season. Both will continue to be great NHL players. But only one can stay and win the prize waiting for them in Temp…I mean Glendale.
And the winner is…[drumroll]…Tobi Rieder.
Tobias Rieder kills penalties. Tobias Rieder can skate on any line and fill any given role during a given game while skating with speed only a handful of NHL players can match. Tobias Rieder is, arguably, one of the best non-mainstream (i.e. Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic and Slovakia) European players in the league.
Brad Richardson is a good skater. Brad Richardson is also a decent penalty killer. Brad Richardson has moderate speed. But is Brad Richardson from Germany? Nope!
In all seriousness, its a really close decision between these two and I honestly would take Rieder because of his youth and versatility. Moreover, the Coyotes are stocked down the middle in terms of centerman, sporting (in my projections) Antoine Vermette, Martin Hanzal, Boyd Gordon and most likely Dylan Strome.
I don’t see room for Richardson, which means you know which column he ends up in…
Next: Expansion Draft Exposed Players and Dearly Departed Coyotes
Arizona Coyotes Players Exposed to Expansion Draft And Your Dearly Departed Coyotes:
Some of these names many Coyotes fans really don’t wanna see be exposed to drafting, such as King Louis Domingue, long-time Coyote Kyle Chipchura, short-time Coyote Brad Richardson and finally, even shorter-time Coyote Jarred Tinordi.
- G Louis Domingue (Pending RFA)
- C Brad Richardson
- C Kyle Chipchura (Pending UFA)
- LW Jiri Sekac (Pending RFA)
- LW Sergei Plotnikov (Pending RFA)
- RW Viktor Tikhonov (Pending UFA)
- D Nicklas Grossman (Pending UFA)
- D Klas Dahlbeck (Pending RFA)
- D Jarred Tinordi (Pending RFA)
All of them are talented players, but all of them are on the Coyotes version of Food Network’s Chopping Block.
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Puck Prose
“So GM Temesy, who has been Chopped?”
Chef Richardson, you’ve been Chopped.
Chef, your play is too good to go unnoticed. You have a decent face-off percentage, you are a solid penalty killer but most of all, you are an experienced NHL player. An expansion team needs talent and experience. Unfortunately, you have both. I’m sorry. [Brad Richardson walks down an excessively long hallway reflecting on his short-lived experiences with the Arizona Coyotes and then is suddenly gagged, bound and thrown in a windowless van heading north on the I-17 bound for Las Vegas].
Chef Tinordi, you also have been Chopped. You have a great deal of defensive talent. You can move the puck, you are defensively accountable, but most importantly, you received a 20 game suspension for using banned substances. [Jarred Tinordi walks down an excessively long hallway reflecting on his incredibly short-lived experiences with the Arizona Coyotes and then is suddenly caught with a trap by a French-speaking hunter, caged and shipped as non-fragile, 2 week UPS ground freight to eastern Canada].
Departing from my dearly amusing anecdotal theme, the rest of the RFA/UFA gang of misfit players remain free from expansionist tyranny in my eyes. Kyle Chipchura, Klas Dahlbeck, Louis Domingue and Jiri Sekai all seem like the next closest players to be drafted but I don’t think these four will get picked for a few reasons.
Chipchura is a pretty good PK guy, but he’s older than Brad Richardson and doesn’t do as well in the face-off circle. Dahlbeck is a realistic loss to drafting, but if you ignore off-ice issues (which I typically don’t for my own enjoyment), Jarred Tinordi is just more developed at defense. That isn’t to say Klas Dahlbeck isn’t good, but I think Tinordi is just better.
King Louis wouldn’t likely be stolen because there are better starting goalies around the league ripe for the picking.
Finally, Jiri Sekac has bounced around a lot in his short NHL career. If an expansion team really wanted him, I have no doubt he would be accessible on the trade market for a third or fourth round pick/middling prospect. If I were an expansion GM, I honestly wouldn’t use my Coyotes draft pick on a waiver wire king.
With the draft talk done, I can complete this conversation by noting how the expansion draft will affect unprotected players who are not selected by Las Vegas or Quebec City.
Obviously Louis Domingue, if left out of the hands of expansion franchises, will get a nice backup goaltender contract and serve as Mike Smith’s understudy for a few more years. Kyle Chipchura and Nicklas Grossman, in my mind, have completed their stays in the Valley and appear to be ripe for the picking by some teams recently picked over by expansion franchises.
However, other players, like Jiri Sekac, Sergei Plotnikov and Klas Dahlbeck appear to be more likely retained by the Arizona Coyotes as bottom six/bottom pairing support or healthy scratches for injured everyday players.
Next: Coyotes Defensive Outlook: This Season And Changes For 2016-17
In conclusion, you may see these Coyotes dearly depart from Gila River Arena to dustier or snowier pastures elsewhere by way of expansion drafting:
-Las Vegas: C Brad Richardson
-Quebec City: D Jarred Tinordi