Here’s who the Hurricanes exposed in the NHL expansion draft
The Seattle Kraken, the NHL’s newest team, will draft its roster on Wednesday and will choose from a pretty deep talent pool that includes Montreal goalie Carey Price and St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko.
Also included in that draft pool: Carolina Hurricanes forward Nino Niederreiter and defensemen Jake Bean and Jake Gardiner. The Kraken also could choose to sign free agent Dougie Hamilton, whom the Canes have allowed to speak to other teams.
The Kraken, who begin play in the 2021-22 season, will select one player from each team except the Vegas Golden Knights. Kraken general manager Ron Francis said he has held hundreds of mock drafts in preparation but has given out few other hints about his plans.
Francis, before going to Seattle, was the Canes’ GM and has a good handle on their players. Some of the Canes’ possibilities for Wednesday were players drafted while Francis was with Carolina, and he attended several Canes games late in the 2020-21 regular season and the Stanley Cup playoffs for a last look.
The process for the draft is much as it was in 2017 for the expansion Golden Knights. NHL teams were given two options: protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender; or eight skaters (forwards and D-men) and one goalie.
The Canes again went with the 7-3-1 format for the draft. The protected forwards: captain Jordan Staal, Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, Andrei Svechnikov, Vincent Trocheck, Warren Foegele and Jesper Fast. The defensemen protected: Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei.
The protected goalie was Alex Nedeljkovic, who is a restricted free agent.
Forward Martin Necas, who has a year remaining on his entry-level contract, was exempt.
That left Bean and Niederreiter, Steven Lorentz and Morgan Geekie among those to be exposed to the draft.
One big question to be answered: Does Seattle have interest in Hamilton, soon to be an unrestricted free agent?
Niederreiter might have been the biggest surprise in the non-protected list. He’s coming off a 20-goal, 34-point season. It could be that the Canes do not think Francis will bite on Niederreiter’s $5.25 million salary cap hit.
Francis and the Kraken could taken one of the players drafted during his GM tenure with the Canes. Bean, a former first-round pick by the Canes, played 42 regular-season games and 11 in the playoffs in the 2020-21 season. Forward Steven Lorentz played 45 games and 11 in the playoffs and forward Morgan Geekie 36 regular-season and three playoff games.
The Canes obtained goalie Dylan Wells on July 14 in a trade with the Edmonton Oilers for “future considerations” and left him unprotected.
NHL teams were required to turn in their protected rosters Saturday. The league announced the rosters Sunday morning.
NHL teams were required to expose at least one defenseman and two forwards who were under contract for 2021-22 who played at least 27 NHL games last season, or a total of 54 in the past two seasons.
Seattle is required to draft at least 20 players under contract for the 2021-22 regular season. Of those 20, there must be at least 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies.
In 2017, the Golden Knights made forward Connor Brickley a surprise pick from the Hurricanes. Brickley spent the 2016-17 season with the Charlotte Checkers, then the Canes’ AHL affiliate.
Francis was the Canes’ GM and worked a deal with then-Vegas general manager George McPhee in which the Golden Knights took Brickley rather than someone such as veteran forward Lee Stempniak. The Canes gave Vegas a fifth-round draft pick.
Full Carolina Hurricanes list
Protected
Sebastian Aho (F)
Jesper Fast (F)
Warren Foegele (F)
Jordan Staal (F)
Andrei Svechnikov (F)
Teuvo Teravainen (F)
Vincent Trocheck (F)
Brett Pesce (D)
Brady Skjei (D)
Jaccob Slavin (D)
Alex Nedeljkovic (G)
Available
Morgan Geekie (F)
Steven Lorentz (F)
Jordan Martinook (F)
Max McCormick (F)
Brock McGinn (F)
Nino Niederreiter (F)
Cedric Paquette (F)
Sheldon Rempal (F)
Drew Shore (F)
Spencer Smallman (F)
Jake Bean (D)
Jake Gardiner (D)
Eric Gelinas (D)
Jani Hakanpaa (D)
Dougie Hamilton (D)
Maxime Lajoie (D)
Roland McKeown (D)
Joakim Ryan (D)
David Warsofsky (D)
Antoine Bibeau (G)
Jeremy Helvig (G)
Petr Mrazek (G)
James Reimer (G)
Dylan Wells (G)
2021 NHL Expansion Draft
When: Wednesday, 8 pm.
TV: ESPN2
This story was originally published July 18, 2021 at 10:34 AM.
