The Anaheim Ducks Expansion Mock Draft: WWMD, What Would Murray Do?

What Will the Rules Be?

There are a lot of rules, it is the NHL after all. First, a brief reminder of what the eligibility rules were concerning who could be exposed in the expansion draft.

Each club can only protect one goaltender. Teams have two options on how to construct their skater protected lists. They can either protect seven forwards and three defensemen, or they can protect eight skaters. That means teams who want to protect more than three defensemen get to protect two fewer skaters, and must expose more of their forward talent to Seattle.

Vegas can only select one exposed player from each team. Additionally, any player with a no-movement clause (NMC) effective now and after July 1 must be protected. That can hamstring teams whose GMs were too generous with those NMCs.

Finally,

first and second-year professionals are exempt from the expansion draft. Let’s take a look at how the Ducks would construct their protected list if the expansion draft was this summer.

Hands Tied

Anaheim Ducks fans aren’t going to like this.

Everyone agrees we would need to protect Ryan Getzlaf even if he didn’t have an NMC. How do you feel about Corey Perry being protected over another talented skater? The Ducks will have to burn one of their protected spots on the declining right wing.

Even worse, Ryan Kesler also has an NMC. Although he may miss the entire next season, he has not missed the previous 60 games. That means unless he is confirmed to have a career-threatening injury, he must also be protected.

The unfortunate results are the Ducks would have to use three of their protected slots on three 33-year-old declining forwards. That sucking sound you hear is a really good Ducks property flying north for the winter.