Seattle Expansion Draft Series – Article 1: The Rules

It’s that time! You know what time I mean. Time to read all about the Seattle Expansion Draft!

Now, you may say that it’s a long way off. And you’d be right. But, at least a few times a week, questions pop up in the comments about the expansion draft, so it makes sense to get started now.

And I do mean “get started.” Just like last time with Vegas, this will be an expansive, months-long series that will cover all aspects of the expansion draft.

Today’s article will cover the rules of the expansion draft. Who is eligible? How many players can teams protect? How many horrible trades are NHL GMs required to make to help out the expansion team? Two out of those three things will be covered in today’s article.

The next article in the series will take an early look at Detroit. I’m sure people will spend a lot of time in this article’s comments discussing what they think Detroit will do, which is great! Just know that there will be a specific article coming soon that will break down Detroit’s choices.

After that, I’ll take a look at each team around the league, checking in with other writers who cover the teams to get a better look at what decisions they’ll be facing.

As the draft gets close, I’ll take a look at changes to team rosters between now and then that may change what a team decides. Then, mock drafts. If you remember last time, it’s a lot. So let’s get started!

This is what most people care about when it comes to the expansion draft. Sure, there are some smaller items that do have some impact, but as we’ll see in a little bit, not very much.

First off, Vegas is completely exempt from the expansion draft. Seattle will not be picking any players from the Vegas Golden Knights.

Every other team will be able to protect some of its players from being selected by Seattle. We’ll start with how that works, then go into which players are eligible to be selected and which are exempt.

Each team has one of two options:

7 forwards, 3 defense, 1 goalie
8 skaters (non-goalies), 1 goalie.

Most teams will go with the first option. The second option would be one that teams who have four defensemen they value higher than a fifth forward. Regardless of which option a team chooses, they can only protect one goalie.

A player who has a valid No Movement Clause (NMC) MUST be protected. Last expansion draft, players were allowed to waive a NMC specifically for the purposes of the expansion draft and were able to have the NMC remain in place following the expansion draft. It seems likely that the league will do the same thing this time.

This only applies to NMCs, not No Trade Clauses.

If you aren’t sure if a player qualifies, take a look at CapFriendly’s amazing Expansion Draft Tool. A player who must be protected will have an NMC in front of their name. Detroit has no such players. Frans Nielsen had a NMC, but at this point in his contract it’s changed to a modified no trade clause (M-NTC).

In order for a player to be eligible for Seattle to select them, they must have played more than 2 professional seasons by the end of the 2020-21 season. To use a Detroit example, Filip Zadina is exempt and Detroit does not have to use a protection slot on him, regardless of how many games he plays this season. In his case, this season will count as his second professional season because he only played 9 games in the NHL two seasons ago.

The short version is that for the purposes of the expansion draft, a professional season is defined as 10 or more NHL games for players who are 18 or 19 years old or 10 or more NHL games, AHL, or European professional league games for a player who turns 20 before December 31 the year the season begins. The players also have to be signed to an NHL contract, so if a player played 5 seasons in the KHL before signing an NHL contract, those five seasons wouldn’t count for this requirement.

I’m going to cover Detroit’s exemptions in the next article, but if you look at the CapFriendly tool linked a few paragraphs up, you can see who is exempt for Detroit.

One thing that sometimes confuses people is that each team is required to expose four players who meet specific criteria. Last expansion draft, no team had any issue meeting this requirement, so while I’ll cover it here, it’s not something to spend much time focusing on.

A team must expose at least 2 forwards and 1 defenseman who meet the following criteria:

• They have to be under contract in 2021-22
• They played in 27 or more NHL games in 2020-21 OR
• They played in 54 or more NHL games in 2019-20- and 2020-21 combined*

A team must expose one goalie who meets the following criteria:

• They have to be under contract in 2021-22 OR
• They have to be an RFA going into the 2021-22 season.

* UPDATE: Because of the shortened season, the game requirements for this season is pro-rated. Here is the relevant section from the 2020 Memorandum of Understanding:

The numbers I calculated above are assuming that teams play 56 games this season. If the season is cancelled, that’ll likely change.

Again, please don’t spend time worrying about this part. This does not affect which players are exempt either.

The last rule for teams other than Seattle (and Vegas) is about players who are injured long-term (like Henrik Zetterberg). According to Capfriendly, here is the wording for that:

“Players with potential career-ending injuries who have missed the previous 60+ consecutive games due to an injury, do not meet the criteria set forth by the league in respect to the minimum exposure requirements for players, and in certain cases these players may even be deemed as exempt from the Expansion Draft selection process.”

This will not affect many players. Since people here are mainly focused on Detroit, right now it affects Zetterberg, and that’s it on the Red Wings.

Seattle must take exactly one player from each team during the expansion draft. Other teams can make trades with Seattle in addition to the one player selected from their team. For example, hypothetically a team could trade a player like Reilly Smith for a fourth round pick with the understanding that Seattle would take a player like Jonathan Marchessault, but that’s obviously a ridiculous hypothetical. I mean who would gift an expansion teams ²⁄₃ of a top line?

Seattle must take at least 14 forwards, at least 9 defensemen, and at least 3 goalies. At least 20 of the 30 players they select must be under contract for the 2021-22 season. The total cap hit of the players they select must be between 60% and 100% of the 2020-21 cap hit. (Minimum $48.9M, maximum $81.5M) This should not be a problem at all.

So that’s it! Keep your eyes out for the Detroit article. Like I said earlier, I’m sure that there will be a lot of people discussing Detroit’s protected players in the comments here, which is great! Let the speculation begin!