The expansion implications of the Drouin-Sergachev trade
Thursday's trade ahead of the NHL expansion draft pushed over the first domino in what's expected to be a frenzy of moves.
The Montreal Canadiens acquired budding star Jonathan Drouin from the Tampa Bay Lightning for prospect Mikail Sergachev, with a couple of conditional draft picks swapped as well.
The trade appears to be driven by the fear of losing a strong roster player to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft, which the Lightning had with Drouin and their abundance of riches at forward.
With the deal finalized, both teams will have to tweak their strategies as they head into next week's draft. Here are some adjustments likely to be made, and the implications of the deal, for each team:
Lightning
Off the hop, it appears likely it was the Lightning driving the bus in this deal.
Heading into the expansion draft, Tampa was faced with a bit of a conundrum up front: they had more than seven forwards they wanted to protect.
| Player | Age | 2017 Points |
|---|---|---|
| *Steven Stamkos | 27 | 20 |
| *Ryan Callahan | 32 | 4 |
| Nikita Kucherov | 23 | 85 |
| Alex Killorn | 27 | 36 |
| Vladislav Namestnikov | 24 | 28 |
| J.T. Brown | 26 | 6 |
| Ondrej Palat | 26 | 52 |
| Tyler Johnson | 26 | 45 |
*Has no-movement clause.
Of course, prior to the deal, you could also add Drouin and his 53 points to that list. As it stands, it's fair to assume the Lightning will go the 7-3-1 route in terms of protecting players, with the forwards likely being Steven Stamkos, Ryan Callahan (due to his his no-movement clause), Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, and Vladislav Namestnikov.
With Drouin in the mix, the club would likely elect to hang on to him, meaning one of the seven above would have to be exposed, lest a side deal was made with the Golden Knights. So the trade means Vegas will walk away with a significantly less skilled player than they would have pre-trade.
Every team I've talked to the last few weeks is working on some variation of: "How do we give Vegas almost nothing?" Tampa pulls that off.
— James Mirtle (@mirtle) June 15, 2017
The deal allows the Lightning to safely protect their core forwards, while Sergachev will remain ineligible for the draft given he's still a rookie, so the team won't have to protect an extra defenseman.
Canadiens
For the Canadiens, the Drouin deal won't shatter any expansion draft plans, but certainly adds a wrinkle.
With Drouin in the mix, Montreal has another forward that will need protecting, meaning someone who might have thought they'd be protected going into the draft no longer will be.
Joining Drouin among Canadiens forwards likely to be protected would be Max Pacioretty, Andrew Shaw, Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault, Alex Galchenyuk, and Alexander Radulov.
That would leave the likes of Tomas Plekanec, Torrey Mitchell, and Paul Byron as those likely to be made available to the Golden Knights. However, that's without considering the team's defense, which will have three spots available to protect Shea Weber, Jeff Petry (who has a no-movement clause), Alexei Emelin, Brandon Davidson, Jordie Benn, Nathan Beaulieu, and, potentially, Andrei Markov.
This is the type of deal we all expected would come when the expansion draft parameters were laid out. Teams will try to find a way to make sure they won't lose one of their more valuable players for nothing.
Steve Yzerman and Co. were quick to notice that, and chances are they aren't the only team in that boat.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)