Drafting the expansion Hartford Whalers (pt. 1)
Look, I’m happy for the Seattle Kraken. The NHL needs more franchises named for legendary sea creatures, and I’m excited to see what Ron Francis will do with the team as GM.
That said, I’d much rather have seen some combination of the richest people in Greenwich (or anywhere, really, money is green everywhere) throw in for the $650 million to buy an expansion team.
As I’ve said elsewhere, expansion is far from the most likely scenario for the Return of the Whalers. There are simply far too many costs associated with making Hartford NHL-ready again — costs that may be borne at least in part by the ownership group — to see a viable path to over a half-billion dollars of investment in an expansion franchise. Relocation is far more likely.
Whatever. This is just a blog, we do what we want here, and deep in my heart, I’d rather see the New Whalers start from scratch. So, let’s imagine that instead of the Seattle Kraken, the reborn Hartford Whalers became the 32nd franchise in the NHL via expansion this summer.
Who does the team take? Who do they sign? Who will they draft? Who will they trade? Well, before we can answer these kinds of questions, we need to understand the philosophy that will guide our new Whalers. It’s easy to say that our club will “try to win the Stanley Cup.” Everyone says that, but plenty of NHL teams don’t seem to follow through.
In no particular order, we want two things:
- We want to make sure that the team survives and thrives in Hartford.
- We want to build a winner.
How are we going to get there?
Learn from the past so that we never repeat it.
The GM of the new Hartford Whalers should have two photos hung prominently in their office on day one: Mike Liut and Ron Francis. Their photos could line a wall with those of Ray Ferraro, Kevin Dineen, Ulf Samuelsson, Dave Tippett, and countless others who were fan favorites shipped off with zero regard for the people whose hard-earned money kept the team alive. Those photos should be the first things that the GM sees every morning and the last things that the GM sees every night. They should serve as permanent reminders of how awful, unnecessary trades can ruin a franchise.
If anything, I’d want to see a management team that’s a little careful about hanging onto top-tier talent to the point of almost being conservative. Give the fans players they can identify with, build a relationship with, and watch the core grow and win on the ice.
Embrace the salary cap era and newer expansion rules.
We ostensibly start off with the same budget as everyone else, leaving aside the rumored “internal cap” the Panthers have. We don’t want to be cheap. We want to be a balanced, competitive team from day one.
Bear in mind, as of today (December 16, 2020) the only NHL expansion draft conducted in the salary cap era was that of the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas benefitted from a tighter set of expansion rules that allowed teams to protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie or eight skaters and one goalie. In the past, teams could protect up to nine forwards, five defensemen and a goalie or seven forwards, three defensemen and two goalies. With less money and fewer slots to protect players, teams had to leave genuine talent on the board for Vegas’s draft. That draft structure (not to mention some of the boneheaded trades it inspired) played a key role in propelling Vegas to the finals in its inaugural season.
The Seattle Krake…er, Whalers draft won’t quite have the same caliber of players available as Vegas did, and it’s safe to say that teams are wising to the idea of avoiding silly swaps to push expansion teams away from selecting specific players.
Build defensively first.
Vegas rocketed to the top in year one in part due to stellar netminding from Marc-Andre Fleury and the defensive play of Derek Engelland, Colin Miller, and Nate Schmidt, among others.
This year’s expansion draft projects to have some Fleury-esque options in goal, with Braden Holtby, Jake Allen, and Anton Khudobin all currently likely to be unprotected. I also like Nashville’s Connor Ingram as a prospect, or at least I did before he found himself in the center of a match-fixing scandal with his Swedish team, IF Björklöven. Needless to say, this is a team that could be very strong in the net.
Then there’s my personal favorite, the defense. Apart from being an exceptionally solid defenseman, Brady Skjei would give our hypothetical Whalers a chance to bring a former Wolf Pack star home, but rob the Hurricanes of one of their core blueliners. It’d be a fun start to one of the (friendly, I swear!) two big rivalries the New Whalers would bring to the NHL. And who can forget the memorable moment when Chance the Rapper pretended to struggle to pronounce his name on SNL.
Needless to say, the options on the blueline are deep, with the same Colin Miller who helped power Vegas in its expansion season, Colorado’s Ryan Graves, Philly’s Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Faulk, Travis Dermott, and Minnesota’s promising rookie Carson Soucy all likely to be available. I’d take all of them and add Kevin Shattenkirk from Anaheim to fill out some depth and provide veteran leadership.
The forwards available are considerably less deep, but there are at least a few options who intrigue me. Calgary’s Sam Bennett has been gradually making the shift from center to the wing over the past few years, and while he’s generally a depth forward, he has moments of real explosiveness. The below video is a bit dated, but it really demonstrates Bennett’s ability to score from just about anywhere in just about any way:
Mikhail Grigorenko is another interesting choice. The former Sabres first rounder is attempting to make his NHL comeback after a few unimpressive initial seasons with the Sabres and Avalanche during his first stint in the league. He’s been outstanding in his last two seasons with CSKA Moscow of the KHL, and the Columbus Blue Jackets still see a lot of potential upside for him. He’s big, he’s fast, and he makes plays. At 26, there’s plenty of time for him to engineer his turnaround.
Either way, the forward group’s major advantage is that it’s inexpensive. At a grand total of ~$28 million, it’s less than the Leafs spend on four forwards. With $8 million free, this team can easily hit the free agent market and sign some upgrades in the forward position or look at shopping some of the defensive depth and /or one of the three very solid goalies it’s taken to otherwise enhance the roster.
Now that Franchise Hockey Manager 7’s been released, I’ll be using that to simulate the performance of a few potential Whaler franchises and posting results here. I’m hopeful that the developers of the game have improved a few crucial issues that existed in the sixth edition (for one, every team’s attendance almost always falls for the first ten years of its existence regardless of how well the team performs, resulting in the embarrassing and improbable scenarios like the one you see above) but I think that the results will show some very clear takeaways about the potential viability of a new Whalers franchise.
Who’s playing today that you’d love to see in a Whalers uniform (and no, the ‘Canes throwbacks don’t count for this one) in a reborn franchise?
