Edited Jan. 29, 2021 at 10:45 p.m.
Quoting: Foppa21
Definitely forgot about needing to expose at least one. I guess worst-case scenario, EJ doesn't waive and Toews is exposed. Then we'd simply have to trade/pay whatever Seattle asked for not to take him.
Nah, I wouldn't expose Toews that would be silly. It would cost a 1st+ to steer Seattle away from him.
What we'd have to do in that scenario is trade for another teams surplus Dman just prior to the Expansion draft. I'm sure there will be some depth Dman who fits the criteria of playing minimum 27 games and being signed for next season who we could acquire for peanuts to expose instead.
For example, Florida have 6 Dmen under contract for 2021/22 (Ekblad, Stralman, Yandle, Weegar, Nutivara, Gudas). They can only protect 3 or 4 of them, and need to expose at least 1. So that leaves 1-2 Dmen more than what they actually need. So let's say we throw them pick for one of Nutivaara or Gudas, expose them in the expansion draft, and then if they aren't taken we could simply trade them away right after the expansion draft. Or you know, we could just keep them as the 6D next season. Either way we'd get around having to expose Toews. Florida meanwhile would be getting a draft pick for a player they were otherwise going to be exposing and possibly losing for free, so they'd win out of it as well.
Another team we could do that same manouevre with is Carolina. They will likely protect 3-4 of Hamilton, Slavin, Pesce, Skjei, Gardiner, Fleury, and Bean. Fleury will fit the exposure critiria and likely not be protected by Carolina, so we could probably acquire him for a 3rd or 4th and expose him, and then trade him or hold on to him after the ExD.
Yet another team is Montreal. They're almost certainly going to go 7+3+1, protecting Petry, Weber, and Chiarot, and exposing Edmundson. Thus leaving Kulak as a spare Dman who fits the criteria who we could pick up for a mid round pick.
I could go on with examples but I think that gets the point across.