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Uberrima_Fides

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Forum: Armchair-GMMay 30, 2016 at 10:50 p.m.
Thread: Expansion Draft Protections
As the Blackhawks organization currently stands, this protection list would not be legal. <a href="http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/14987657/nhl-gms-preview-potential-expansion-draft-rules" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A potential expansion draft would require each team to leave players representing at least 25% of their salary unprotected</a>, and this proposed list protects over 75% (based on Capfriendly's projections). The only way to change that (without violating any NMCs) is to leave either Anisimov or Hjalmarsson unprotected. However, I think that, between now and whenever the expansion draft is, the Blackhawks will blatantly circumvent this rule by signing about a dozen fringe-NHLers to 1-way, 1 year, 950k contracts and immediately sending them all to the AHL. This would allow them to keep Anisimov/Hjalmarsson because it would drastically inflate Chicago's salary, and they'd be able to do it because when a 1-way contract is demoted from the NHL, the contract's cap hit (up to 950k) is erased. I believe (though I'm not sure) that these players would need to clear waivers when demoted, so the other teams could theoretically claim all of them and drive Chicago's salary back down, but I doubt that they would so blatantly conspire against another franchise.

<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Lly</b></div><div><i>If [the expansion draft] happens in 2017-18, [Panarin would] fall under the "2 year pro minimum" rule and thus not be eligible for the draft</i></div></div>

I don't think this is how the "2 year pro minimum" rule will define "professional" seasons, although it is not yet clear. Though Panarin will only have played 2 NHL seasons at the end of next year, he has played several seasons as a pro in the KHL. As defined in the CBA, the term "Professional Games" includes:

<div class="quote">Quote: <i>any NHL Games played, all minor
league [..] games and any other professional games played, including but
not limited to, games played in any European league or any other league outside North America,
by a Player pursuant to his SPC. </i></div>

Under this definition, Panarin (and other players in his position) would be still exempt at the end of 2016-17 because his professional KHL seasons were not played while he was under an SPC (Standard Player Contract) with the NHL. Conversely, William Nylander (and players in his position) would be eligible for an expansion draft at the end of 2016-17 because he signed his ELC a year before he came to North America (meaning that not only his 2015-16 and 2016-17 NHL/AHL seasons, but also his 2014-15 SHL season, would be counted as years of professional experience.

However, the definition of 'professional experience' agreed upon for the expansion draft is -- according to the article I linked above -- much more broad:

<div class="quote">Quote: <i>[Only] First- and second-year pros -- including those playing pro hockey at any level -- will be exempt from the expansion draft.</i></div>

This makes no mention of players having to be under an NMC for international pro experience to count, and while it is possible that the article simply omitted its pretense in the expansion draft rule, I think it is more likely that (for the expansion draft) European pro experience will count regardless of a player's contract status at the time. The main reason I say this is that in the most recent batch of expansion drafts, there were players selected (for example Michal Bros and Sergei Luchinkin) who never played in North America and who -- according to the hockeyzoneplus.com database -- never signed NHL contracts.