Would you consider leaving Shea unprotected? He'll be 36 in his 1st game with the Kraken and ~$8M cap hit.

No, MTL protect Weber Mete Fleury

@habsrule10101 do you speak french ?

Pretty sure they have to. Although if they could get them to take him, that would be a huge win for the Habs.

Oh for sure, losing a guy in the Norris talk and start the 2021-2022 season with Juulsen Fleury Brook on the Right side or even better, sign 34 yo Petry 5 years at 5M why not ? Man can you stop writing in the habs post and stick to the Leafs ?

Weber isn't in the Norris conversation. Montreal is toast. If you can unload Weber's deal to Seattle you do it.

The only one I’ll be willing to give Seattle is Carey Price if we can receive something decent ( definitely not for free, I rather keep him )

Price would have to waive his NMC as would Weber, if they don't want to move there is no discussion. But yeah Montreal should have done a rebuild a few years ago or commit to one now. They aren't good enough to contend. This year is a loss and keeping old guys with huge term and cap dollars is a mistake.

MTL can’t tank, the fans/media/city won’t accept it. Just look at Edmonton, they got 4 1st overall pick in 7 years and because they didn’t have leaders to guide them, they sucks. Price/Weber are the structure of this team ( with Gallagher ), MTL won’t trade them

That isn't what went wrong in Edmonton. They never surrounded their talent with proper depth and spent way to much on older vets that couldn't do anything. Now they have the best player in the world, a handful of other guys and a pile of garbage. Montreal isn't good enough to win. They aren't good enough for the playoffs. They have some decent guys coming up but not a lot of star firepower and really no clear #1 Franchise centre to speak of. On top of that, they have 2 terrible long term contracts in Weber and Price. Fans are often emotional and extremely short sighted, really what do the fans want? More of the same? Or would they rather have some short term pain for long term contention. Its not easy doing one without the other. Look at Buffalo, they jumped the gun on their rebuild so many times. Vancouver is doing the same, spending on vets to "teach the kids to play" but those vets aren't good enough to play at a high level and the kids have to carry them. Do a proper rebuild, get your cap in order and come back stronger than ever.

By the expansion draft: Tatar, Danault, Gallagher, Lehkonen, KK, Armia, Petry and Fleury are either UFAs or RFAs so any of them could be left unsigned and Montreal gamble they won't sign with Seattle during the pre-draft window offered to Seattle**. If they leave Lehkonen or Armia unisgned and let's say one signs with Seattle well the expansion draf is done for our team*.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Chiarot would have to waive his no trade clause to be left unprotected which could create a problem to your plan of protecting the future.

**Same rules apply from Begas: Vegas was granted a 48-hour window prior to the draft to sign any pending free agent (RFA or UFA, one per team) that was left unprotected. If a team lost a player to Vegas during this signing window they did not have a player selected from their roster during this draft.
*Better explanation of that rule here: http://sinbin.vegas/curious-role-ufas-expansion-draft/

For the forwards I either trade Tatar and protect Armia or I leave one of Armia-Lehkonen unsigned and make a deal with him or hope he doesn't sign with Seattle, forwards left unprotected wouldn't be a huge loss to the team (We could argue about Byron but meh). Defense lprotect Chiarot if he doesn't wave his clause, leave Fleury unsigned and hope or give a sweetener to Seattle to take Byron.

I would go with Armia if I am the Kraken GM

Tatar will be UFA by exp-draft, Habs can just resign him after the exp-draft, but have a wink-wink verbal deal worked out ahead of time

in what world does Montreal protect Lehkonen over Armia