Inside the Madness of Hockey's First Expansion Draft of the Salary Cap Era

The end of June is always busy for NHL front offices. This year, it's even busier.

On Sunday, all 30 current NHL clubs submitted their protected/available lists of players in advance of the league's first expansion draft since 2000—and its first in the salary-cap era. On Wednesday, the league's newest franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, will use those lists to select 30 players and construct their roster. On Friday, the NHL entry draft commences, and on July 1, free agency.

"It's the Wild Wild West out there," one NHL executive told VICE Sports last week.

The expansion draft has thrown a wrench into the already complex machinations of NHL teams during the early off-season.

"Essentially, Vegas becomes an exchange, where players who aren't protected can come through to go to other teams for assets in return, should Vegas decide to weigh the value of the assets greater than the value of the player," one general manager told VICE Sports.

And for now, it is all happening in secret. The entire league is wheeling and dealing, and nobody on the outside knows exactly what those deals are. On Monday night, Vegas GM George McPhee set a mini-trade deadline for his club, and on Tuesday he said that he had made "at least a half-dozen" transactions. Those transactions, and Vegas's selections, will be announced at the draft on Wednesday.

For McPhee and his staff, which includes Director of Hockey Operations Misha Donskov, preparation for this week and the potential trade offers they would receive or deals they hoped to consummate began long ago, when the hockey operations department was formed.

"We're a brand-new organization, so we started from ground zero with a blank canvas," Donskov said. "The first order of business was to put together pro and amateur scouting staffs. Once we had our staff set up geographically and had our system in place, we followed a plan that basically led us to this month and more specifically this moment of drafting and assembling a team."

Starting last October through now, the pro scouting staff has been brought to Vegas for meetings over a period lasting three to five days each month, to discuss their player and team evaluations and, most importantly, conduct a mock expansion draft.

"What we tried to do is every month we looked at who we had drafted the previous month and how those things had changed," Donskov said. "They might change based on a player's performance; they might change based on a scout's opinion; they may change based on the dynamics of the league, whether there was a trade, whether there was an injury and all those types of things. So doing that once a month ultimately brought us to this point. Now that we're here, we're excited, we're extremely confident and we're ready."

The expansion draft also has a ripple effect on the entire league and how its clubs prepare for the entry draft and free agency this off-season.

"I think it's always busy this time of year but this year in particular in these last couple weeks leading in with the expansion draft it's been busier for sure," New Jersey Devils GM Ray Shero told VICE Sports. "Everybody knows they're going to lose one player. Some teams are accepting that, so to speak, and just moving along saying, 'You know what? I'm going to lose a player, I'm done, that's it,' but other teams are talking to or have spoken to Vegas and tried to make deals so that Vegas doesn't take a certain player off their roster.

"That's the way it's always been done with expansion, but now you factor in the cap and it's even busier this time around. There's been plenty of conversation."

With the Devils having the top overall pick in the entry draft Friday, Shero has been fielding calls from his counterparts around the league, some with substantial offers involving current NHL players. As of Tuesday, however, Shero is still intent on using the pick to select the best possible player he could to help his team.

"Never say never, but as of now our staff has been told to prepare to make the pick," he said.

Some of the trade chatter did lead to a trade last Thursday as Tampa Bay dealt young star winger Jonathan Drouin to the Montreal Canadiens for top defenseman prospect Mikhail Sergachev and conditional picks. Drouin was a restricted free agent, and as part of the expansion draft Vegas was entitled to an exclusive window to make trades and sign free agents. Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman felt that it would be better to deal Drouin and maximize his asset rather than lose him during that window.

It's not always that easy, though, as Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion found out last week when he asked veteran defenseman Dion Phaneuf to waive his no-movement clause for the purpose of exposing him in the expansion draft. Phaneuf declined. This forced Dorion to expose another key part of his blue line in Marc Methot, who according to a report by Frank Seravalli of TSN on Tuesday, could end up not just being selected by the Golden Knights in the expansion draft but then traded to the Senators' arch-rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Seravalli listed five other teams as having trades in place with Vegas: the Islanders, the Blackhawks, the Lightning, the Blue Jackets, and the Penguins.

As Shero points out, this is all part of the balancing act the 30 other NHL GMs must undertake as a result of the expansion draft.

"If you did a deal before the expansion list was submitted, then you might have been backing yourself into a corner," he said. "If you acquire one guy then you're forced to expose another guy. So teams were probably thinking, I'll just have to take the chance the guy we're targeting will be available after the expansion draft. But there were teams thought who had potentially difficult protection issues—whether it was Minnesota, Anaheim, or Tampa Bay as we saw with Drouin—who were trying to make some sort of deal to not lose a really young, high-caliber player for nothing in the expansion draft. Steve Yzerman was able to do that, but other GMs, for whatever reason, didn't or couldn't. We may find out after the draft they did something with Vegas, but right now, we'll just wait and see. So for the last few weeks and until Vegas drafts their team, George McPhee is holding all the cards."

Smack dab in the middle of all those conversations are the Golden Knights. According to Donskov, they intend to take full advantage of the trade buzz as they try to build a team that will not only be competitive now but for the foreseeable future.

"That's what it's all about in this expansion draft," Donskov said. "We want to acquire some foundational pieces but we also understand that it's going to be a process, and in that process it's critical for us having ultimately long-term success. If you look at George's track record when he was in Washington and some of the things that he did there, building that core and then building around it, they've had a lot of success and it takes time, it takes patience, and it takes a group that makes good decisions, manages assets well, and sticks to a plan, and that's what we intend to do."