Winnipeg Jets NHL Expansion Draft Plans - Part 1: How the Rules Apply

The NHL expansion draft is rapidly approaching! This will be the means by which the Vegas Golden Knights acquire players for their inaugural NHL season in 2017-18. In preparation, I will be posting a series of posts to explore the rules of the draft, and how the Winnipeg Jets might approach it. The series will include:

1. Exploring the rules of the NHL expansion draft and how they apply to the Winnipeg Jets
2. 7/3/1 or 8/1 for the Winnipeg Jets?
3. The Defense: would Toby Enstrom waive his No-move clause?
4. The Forwards: will the Jets try to cash in on Mathieu Perreault’s peak value by trading him prior to the expansion draft?
5. Veteran goaltender: exploring the impact of acquiring one before the expansion draft
6. My projected Winnipeg Jets expansion draft protected list.

In this post, I’ll explore the rules of the NHL expansion draft, and how they apply to the Winnipeg Jets.

Expansion draft rules (via https://www.nhl.com)
An abridged version of the rules follows; for all the details, see https://www.nhl.com.

Protected Lists
Clubs can protect either:
a) Seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender
b) Eight skaters (any combination of forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender

• Players with "No Movement" clauses must be protected.
• Players with two or fewer years as professionals and all unsigned draft choices will be exempt.

Player Exposure Requirements

All Clubs must expose:
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.

• Players with potential career-ending injuries may also be deemed exempt from selection by the League.

There has been plenty of talk in various venues about how the Winnipeg Jets will compose their expansion draft protected list, but these discussions typically gloss over the details that must be considered to ensure the list complies with all rules. The rules describe two groups of players: those who are exempt from the expansion draft, and those who are eligible for it. There are also two subsets of eligible players who are subject to further requirements: players with No Move clauses must be protected (unless the clause is waived); and a minimum number of players at each position must be protected who have met criteria based on games played.
Luckily for us, there is a tool available at https://www.capfriendly.com/expansion-draft which makes it easy to categorize players on any team, as well as build your own protected list for each NHL team. The player categories and tables found below are adapted from this tool.
Winnipeg Jets Players Exempt from the Expansion Draft

The Jets were lucky with the timing of NHL expansion. The presence of current stars Laine, Ehlers and Morrissey on the exempt list is a boon. Add to those solid contributors Petan and Tanev, as well as highly regarded prospects of whom much is expected in the near future Connor, Roslovic, Poolman and Comrie, and you have to consider the Jets to be one of the luckier teams in the league.
Winnipeg Jets Players Eligible for the Expansion Draft

*Red font denotes players who must be protected due to No Move clause

I will consider the relative merits of the 7/3/1 vs. 8/1 protected list composition in my next post, but this table allows us to draw conclusions around minimum exposure requirements. Assuming no changes to roster composition between now and the expansion draft, the Winnipeg Jets will easily meet minimum exposure requirements for goalies and defensemen by exposing Michael Hutchinson and Mark Stuart. Exposing Shawn Matthias will get the Jets halfway to their minimum exposure requirements for forwards, but that’s where things get interesting: the Jets must also expose at least one of Mathieu Perreault, Adam Lowry and Joel Armia, regardless of the composition of their protected list.