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Happy Friday, BSB faithful.  The Stanley Cup Final is winding to a conclusion and most of the league’s front offices are gearing up for the Expansion Draft.  There has been a lot of cryptic information coming from the media about different strategies, objectives and potential hand shake deals.  If nothing else, it will be an incredibly interesting experience for industry types and fans, alike.  As we ramp up toward June 21st, I have some thoughts.

1. Can someone explain to me why we don’t have some sort of 24/7 style show recording this? From assembling a front office from scratch to the creative maneuverings of the draft itself, this is a unique and rare opportunity to get a glimpse into this process.  If you are a fan of the sport on even a casual level, it would be a phenomenal watch.  Don’t give me that crap either about the cameras compromising the job, leaking information yada, yada.  I’m sick of these guys getting to do their jobs without any transparency.  Let the fans see how it works.

2. Especially since what’s going to happen is what is going to happen. There will be a finite amount of moves, and hopefully they are interesting.  What would be really great to see if the stuff that teams tried to put together.  A bad contract changes hands, how did that discussion go?  Did they try any other variation of it?  What blockbuster trade almost came to fruition?  The format and concept of this draft has created a fertile environment for actual hockey moves.  Really interesting stuff.

3. This whole thing also kicks up a lot of dirt around the concept of value. The value of cap space, the value of keeping that one guy your prior moves forced you to expose.  The value of franchise players and future assets.  The value of NMC’s.  It’s all up for grabs.   How much bribe money is a team willing to spend to convince George McPhee to take their garbage?

4. Speaking of McPhee, has anyone ever had a better job? Sure, his team is going to suck, but he is in the driver’s seat of the entire league’s offseason strategy.  He holds all the cards, and 30 other GM’s are going to try to beg/bribe/convince him to help cover up past mistakes.  He holds power over the rest of the league and it will be fascinating not only to see how he wields this power, but what his team building/asset accumulation strategy looks like.

5. Back of my mind fear: the NHL is the only league that could screw this up. GM’s today are so weary of making hockey trades now a days (the blockbuster’s from last season notwithstanding), this needs to shake things up.  So help me, if this thing just runs down a list of mediocre selection of protected players with the cards shuffling (pun intended) every now and then as a draft pick is exchanged for a minor change in selection, I’m going to be pissed.  I’m on team chaos for this whole thing.  I want to see some serious earth moving deals made.

6. The Rangers, all things considered, are in a half decent spot as we approach the Expansion Draft. They have some useful players that are exposed, but no bloated NMC is blocking a game breaker from being protected.  Sure, you would have stacked the deck (I’m sorry, I’m going to stop with the card puns right now) differently, but the Rangers aren’t desperate.  That doesn’t mean there is no opportunity here, and Gorton should be diving head first into leveraging this format to improve the blue line.

7.Don’t forget, there are 18 days left to submit your Offseason Plan for consideration. We are cutting off submissions on June 20 at 8pm eastern.  We already have some high quality candidates, so make sure to get yours in.

Let’s hear your thoughts on the Expansion Draft and the Rangers’ strategy in the comments below.

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