Philadelphia Flyers Expansion Draft Planning
By Marc Naples
NHL Las Vegas is happening with an expansion draft next summer, and it’s never too early for the Philadelphia Flyers to plan
The signing of Brandon Manning yesterday not only clarified things in terms of training camp spot competition and the Philadelphia Flyers salary cap standing, but the signing of this last free agent also adds some clarity to planning for the expansion draft when Las Vegas enters the league for the 2017-18 season.
To prepare to enter the league, an expansion draft is scheduled for next summer. We already took an initial look at this, but a few signings since then have changed the picture slightly. Without getting academic about the rules, here’s the relevant picture for the Flyers.
Forwards
Most of the protect decisions are pretty easy. The Flyers’ big forward prospects are exempt from draft eligibility as well. It gets a little interesting when you get down to the last handful of names. Essentially, the Flyers can protect 2 of these 5; Raffl, Weise, Cousins, Laughton, and Read.
I would also guess that Read is likely exposed, and Raffl is likely protected. That leaves Weise, Cousins and Laughton fighting for one spot. The Flyers will also need to have extended either Laughton or Cousins to new contracts by the time of the draft for them to count as the 2nd eligible forward the Flyers are required to expose.
Defense
Switching over to defense, the Flyers may protect 4 defensemen and are required to expose at least 1 defenseman under the 40/70 games played rule mentioned in the forwards section.
The Flyers are actually under very little pressure here. They have 4 protected spots to work with, and Ghost and Gudas are easy calls. Additionally, Del Zotto is a pending unrestricted free agent after this season, but presuming he is or will be signed, that’s protected spot number 3.
When it comes to spot number 4, presumably the Flyers would be happy to dangle Andrew MacDonald’s contract to the expansion team. For MacDonald to count towards the mandatory exposure requirements, however, MacDonald would have to play 40 games for the Flyers this season.
If the Flyers demote MacDonald to the AHL again this season and he doesn’t play in 40 NHL games, they would have to turn to Brandon Manning as their required exposure. This was made a lot easier with his new 2-year contract. Manning also played 56 NHL games last season, so he only needs to appear in 14 games this year to meet the 70 games test.
Overall, the Flyers should not have a difficult time protecting the defensemen they want to keep around.
Goalies
As for goalies, the Flyers may protect 1 goalie, but also must expose a goalie who is under contract for the coming season or is a restricted free agent who has received a qualifying offer. At the moment, only young AHL goalie Anthony Stolarz potentially meets this requirement. He is a pending restricted free agent.
Both Michal Neuvirth and Steve Mason are pending unrestricted free agents next summer. Presuming the Flyers sign one of them to a long term deal before next summer, the Flyers will obviously protect that goalie. In that case, Stolarz would be exposed in the expansion draft.
The alternative is protecting Stolarz and having no bona fide NHL goalie at the time of the expansion draft. That is a very risky proposition. It is probably wiser for the Flyers to hope that there will be many quality goalie prospects, or even established NHL goalies, available in the expansion draft. As such, it is likely that Las Vegas will look past the Flyers’ goalie prospect for safer bets in net.
Overall the Philadelphia Flyers are in pretty good shape. They have a few decisions to make up front and will have to cross their fingers in goal, but they’re not in line to suffer a significant loss at any spot. Furthermore, with Manning’s new contract, the Flyers are largely free to send either Manning or MacDonald down to the AHL this year as current team needs may require.