The Biggest Storylines Surrounding the NHL Expansion Draft

On Wednesday, we'll get our first glimpse of what kind of team the Vegas Golden Knights will ice when they kick off their inaugural season as the NHL's 31st franchise this fall.

We've seen the lists of protected and exposed players from all the existing teams. Every mock draft that has been tossed out into the public eye carries an asterisk beside it, no matter how well-connected the author might be. Right now, no one knows the full extent of what kind of trades or side deals Vegas general manager George McPhee has put into place.

The expansion draft selections will be revealed on Wednesday in Las Vegas as part of the annual NHL Awards. As Dan Marrazza of the Golden Knights website explained, the plan is for the reveal of the new Vegas players to be integrated with the announcement of the awards, making for what should be an action-packed show. 

Vegas will be free to announce its trades on Wednesday as well. For the rest of the league, trading won't resume until Thursday morning—as everyone reconvenes in Chicago ahead of the first round of Friday's entry draft.

With lots of question marks still swirling about, here are the biggest storylines about the expansion draft as we close in on Wednesday night's big reveal.

It's said that good teams are built from the net out and if that's the case, Vegas looks like it'll start on strong footing with Marc-Andre Fleury.

Chosen first-overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2003, the 32-year-old man they call Flower is fourth among active goaltenders with 691 games played—and 28th of all time. He won Stanley Cups with the Penguins in 2009, 2016 and 2017 but was pushed out of the starter's role over the last year thanks to the ascent of Matt Murray.

According to Hockey Reference, Fleury is the Penguins' career team leader in every goaltending category you can name—games played, wins, losses, goals against, shots against, goals-against average, shutouts; everything.

Though he had a no-movement clause in his contract that required the Penguins to protect him for the expansion draft, Fleury agreed to waive the clause rather than force Pittsburgh to expose Murray—and he did it early enough to spare the team the conundrum of whether to try to deal him before the trade deadline.

"I thought it was the right thing to help the team, to stay with the team and finish the season here and have a chance to play for the Cup again," Fleury told Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Given that an injury to Murray meant that Fleury played through the first two-and-a-bit rounds of the playoffs and ended his time in Pittsburgh by hoisting the Stanley Cup, the plan worked to perfection for all parties concerned.

When word came out that Fleury had agreed to waive his no-movement clause, Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports tweeted that it was on the condition that he only be available to Vegas. If that's true, he'll almost certainly be in the Golden Knights' crease on opening night at T-Mobile Arena.

As for which other goalies will join him, McPhee has a long list of quality netminders to choose from, not limited to Antti Raanta of the New York Rangers, Philipp Grubauer of the Washington Capitals, Petr Mrazek of the Detroit Red Wings, Jonathan Bernier of the Anaheim Ducks and Steve Mason of the Philadelphia Flyers.

Of their 30 selections, the Golden Knights are required to choose a minimum of 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies. That totals 26, so they'll have four more slots to use as they please.

Since all teams are able to protect only one goaltender, good backups could be valuable commodities after the dust has settled.

Will McPhee collect a long list of goalies, then trade them to teams in need? Or, if a team really wants to hang on to its backup, will the Vegas GM pick up extra assets as compensation for turning a blind eye on a tempting target?

In the days leading up to the submission of each team's protected list, plenty of rumors swirled about the high prices some general managers were willing to pay in order to keep McPhee from choosing valuable players they wouldn't be able to protect.

Word was that McPhee's base price for such considerations was a first-round pick—and that multiple teams were biting, even with the knowledge that they would still lose a player from their exposed list.

With rosters now frozen, Frank Seravalli of TSN itemized the deals that are believed to be in place:

• Columbus Blue Jackets to give up 24th pick for the opportunity to keep goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, defenseman Jack Johnson and forward Josh Anderson.
• New York Islanders to give a first-round pick for the opportunity to keep forwards Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson, Ryan Strome and/or Calvin de Haan.
• Chicago Blackhawks expose Trevor van Riemsdyk on the condition that the Golden Knights will also pick up forward Marcus Kruger (and his contract with a cap hit of over $3 million per season).
• Anaheim Ducks don't have a first-round pick this year but will likely offer compensation in the form of a young defense prospect in exchange for the opportunity to retain older blueliners Sami Vatanen and Josh Manson.

On Wednesday, we'll find out which of these reports are accurate—and whether they survived the followup offers other teams may have made in an effort to bring a valuable player on to their own team with Vegas serving as the middleman.

The Golden Knights will choose 30 players on Wednesday but will only be able to keep 23 on their opening-night roster in October. That roster will also have to include space for free agents such as KHL veteran Vadim Shipachyov, who has already been signed, as well as any other players who are acquired outside the expansion draft.

McPhee might be able to slip a few of the players he chooses through to the minors to stock his farm team. He seems much more interested in setting his team up for long-term growth by flipping some of the players he selects to other teams in exchange for draft picks.

As with any team, some picks won't pan out and some will be NHL-ready sooner than others, so it's unlikely that McPhee will be forced to deal with a deluge of young talent down the road.

In the short term, trading current players for future considerations allows him to defer some of the benefits the Golden Knights received from the league in exchange for that $500 million expansion fee owner Bill Foley paid out in June 2016.

McPhee has kept most of his team-building rhetoric focused around a sensible long-term plan for the Golden Knights, but come on, it's Vegas, the city of glitter and gamblers.

Surely the big reveal on Wednesday will feature at least one player with enough name recognition to generate some excitement in a city that's used to its Canadian imports hitting high notes like Celine Dion or flying through the air like the acrobats of Cirque du Soleil.

The Golden Knights could bring in Eric Staal as their first captain. He's a Stanley Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist who's coming off a bounce-back season with 28 goals and 65 points last season with the Minnesota Wild.

At 32, Staal should still have some gas in the tank, but he's not the kind of player who's going to generate headlines away from the rink or stray too far from hockey's conservative old-school vibe.

Would McPhee consider adding some name recognition by bringing in a high-profile veteran free agent like Joe Thornton from the San Jose Sharks or Jaromir Jagr from the Florida Panthers?

Thornton's bushy beard and Jagr's long hair make them instantly recognizable. The pair have also been on the scene and played at hockey's top level seemingly forever—they're the two highest-scoring active players in the NHL.

If Vegas is where older folks go to feel young again, maybe Thornton and Jagr can cap off their careers in style as ambassadors for a new wave of fans as the faces of the Golden Knights franchise.

McPhee offered another glimpse into his expansion draft strategy in early June when he said, through his team's Twitter account, that "We have a lot of teams that are offering us big contracts...we'll take a few of those, for the right price."

That must have been music to the ears of more than a few general managers, who would otherwise need to use buyouts or make tough trades in order to free up much-needed salary-cap space.

Looking at CapFriendly's breakdown under the just-announced $75 million salary cap for the 2017-18 season, the Chicago Blackhawks top the list, as usual. It's believed that general manager Stan Bowman has plans to move Marcus Kruger out to Vegas. 

Other exposed players with rich deals and plenty of talent who could land in Vegas include Bobby Ryan of the Ottawa Senators (five more years at a cap hit of $7.25 million), Mike Cammalleri of the New Jersey Devils (two more years at a cap hit of $5 million), James Neal of the Nashville Predators (one more year at a cap hit of $5 million) and Troy Brouwer of the Calgary Flames (three more years at a cap hit of $4.5 million).

The New York Islanders are trying to upgrade their forward ranks enough to entice John Tavares to sign a long-term deal rather than becoming a free agent on July 1, 2018. 

Arthur Staple of Newsday is reporting that Islanders general manager Garth Snow has agreed to give up a first-round pick in order to keep control over which player from the team's unprotected list will be lost—and might be able to send Mikhail Grabovski's contract to Vegas as well. The Belarusian hasn't played since suffering a concussion in March 2016 and has one year left on a contract with a cap hit of $5 million.

David Clarkson's contract could also be part of the rumored deal in place for the Columbus Blue Jackets. The deal runs for three more years with a cap hit of $5.25 million per season but Clarkson also hasn't played since March, 2016 due to back issues.

If the Golden Knights assume the contracts of players who can go on the long-term injured reserve list, it can help them meet the salary-cap floor without having to actually spend money on the deals, which will be covered by insurance.

McPhee will also get some nice incentives from his counterparts in exchange for helping them free up some much-needed cap space.

After he saw the list of players available to him, McPhee was quoted by his team's Twitter feed as saying: "We can put a competitive team on the ice and accumulate draft picks."

The management team has been given a solid bounty to put together a new franchise. Soon, it will be up to the coaching group led by Gerard Gallant to try to find the chemistry that will make the team competitive—and deliver some wins on home ice to keep the fanbase engaged.

The Golden Knights are fortunate to be joining the NHL as the newest members of the Pacific Division, a few years after it was the toughest division in hockey.

The Edmonton Oilers are on the upswing and the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks will be tough to play against, but Vegas will have its opportunities to take points from the floundering Vancouver Canucks, the defensively suspect Calgary Flames and their closest rivals, the resetting Los Angeles Kings.

Don't expect a playoff berth in Year 1, but don't assume the Golden Knights are going to roll snake eyes, either.