St. Louis Blues in Ideal Position for NHL Expansion Draft

Doug Armstrong has constructed his roster in a way that will leave it in great position for next year’s NHL expansion draft.

The NHL officially announced on Wednesday afternoon that an expansion team will be added in Las Vegas and will begin play in the 2017-18 season. With that announcement came news of an expansion draft to take place next summer, during which the Las Vegas franchise will select one player from each of the 30 existing NHL franchises. While they’re welcome to select a pending unrestricted free agent and secure his early negotiating rights, the new team will likely try to select as many players under club control as they can in order to build depth for their first season.

While the draft’s many guidelines and stipulations provide only so much protection to the franchises that possess considerable talent, it seems as if Blues GM Doug Armstrong has been building his team for the past several years with the assumption that the expansion draft was going to take place in 2017, and as a result the Blues appear to be in fantastic shape going into the draft next summer.

In addition to the four Blues players scheduled to hit unrestricted free agency next month (David Backes, Troy Brouwer, Kyle Brodziak, and Steve Ott), the Blues also have five players (Alexander Steen, Patrik Berglund, Kevin Shattenkirk, Robert Bortuzzo, and Brian Elliott) with contracts set to expire after 2016-17. Scottie Upshall, who was signed to a one-year extension on Wednesday, and Vladimir Sobotka, who’s expected to return on a one-year deal after spending the last two years overseas, will add two more names to the list of players who will come off the books in advance of the expansion draft.

The flexible state of the Blues’ roster will put them at a great advantage in the expansion draft. From the official rules announced Wednesday for next year’s draft:

"Protected Lists* Clubs will have two options for players they wish to protect in the Expansion Draft:a) Seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltenderb) Eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender* All players who have currently effective and continuing “No Movement” clauses at the time of the Expansion Draft (and who to decline to waive such clauses) must be protected (and will be counted toward their club’s applicable protection limits).* All first- and second-year professionals, as well as all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection (and will not be counted toward their club’s applicable protection limits)."

As things stand now, the Blues have only seven forwards who ended the regular season on the NHL roster under contract beyond 2016-17. Robby Fabbri and 2014 second-rounder Ivan Barbashev, who’s likely to see NHL action next season, will be considered second-year professionals, so they’ll be exempt from the draft, and the number of current forwards who would need protection thus shrinks to six.

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Jaden Schwartz will surely be back, too, and Magnus Paajarvi may join him. Guys like David Backes and Troy Brouwer also could end up back in St. Louis on multi-year deals, and they’d likely also be protected players. Regardless, though, it’s very possible that it may be more advantageous for the Blues to go with the eight skaters option.

Two of the forwards under contract for the 2017-18 season are Paul Stastny (scheduled to make $7M) and Ryan Reaves (set to make $1.125M), and the Blues would likely welcome the opportunity to shed their contracts–assuming that they don’t vastly improve in 2016-17–if the Las Vegas team was interested in either player. A breakout performance next season from a guy like Dmitrij Jaskin or Ty Rattie could influence the Blues to go with the 10-player option, but as of now it looks like it might make more sense to protect their defensive depth.

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With that said, the player whom the Blues might be most willing to leave unprotected is 32-year-old defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, who has often looked like a shell of his former self over the past two seasons. While Bouwmeester is an asset due to his strong chemistry with Alex Pietrangelo and his ability to play extended minutes, he provides little offensive ability at this stage of his career and isn’t consistent enough in his own zone to justify his $5.4M yearly salary.

It’s highly unlikely that the expansion franchise would strain their spending ability by taking on an overpriced defenseman heading into his age 34 season, but his omission from the protected list would give the Blues an opportunity to hang onto another player that they value. While Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz are great players, the Blues’ young defensive core is the strength of the team, so they’ll presumably want to do everything they can to hang onto valued young assets like Alex Pietrangelo, Colton Parayko, and Joel Edmundson, as well as secondary contributors like Carl Gunnarsson and Petteri Lindbohm.

With Bouwmeester, Stastny, and Reaves, the Blues could easily satisfy the NHL’s requirements regarding competitive players being available in the draft:

"i) One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.ii) Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.iii) One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 or will be a restricted free agent at the expiration of his current contract immediately prior to 2017-18. If the club elects to make a restricted free agent goaltender available in order to meet this requirement, that goaltender must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the club’s protected list."

Considering that Brian Elliott will be an unrestricted free agent and heading into his age 32 season next summer, it figures that Jake Allen will be the goalie the Blues protect (if they even stick with their same goalie tandem through the end of 2016-17). They have plenty of other young goaltenders that they could use to satisfy the contractual requirement, though, as they could bring back as many as three AHL goalies for next season–Anders Nilsson, Jordan Binnington, and Pheonix Copley are all pending restricted free agents–and they also have Finnish prospect Ville Husso and juniors prospect Luke Opilka under contract.

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Obviously every franchise will be weakened by the expansion draft to some extent, and the Blues are going to end up losing a player that they value. Barring a series of major acquisitions this offseason, though, it looks like the Blues are in much better position to survive the draft relatively unharmed than most other clubs are.

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St. Louis Blues in Ideal Position to Navigate Next Year’s NHL Expansion Draft

By Patrick Karraker | Jun 23, 2016

Doug Armstrong has constructed his roster in a way that will leave it in great position for next year’s NHL expansion draft.

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