When Madison Bowey made his first two Blackhawks appearances this week, he crossed a crucial threshold.
Bowey’s games played total over the past two seasons rose from 53 to 55, making him now considered an “experienced” defenseman for purposes of the NHL expansion draft — which will be held this summer to build out the NHL’s 32nd franchise, the Seattle Kraken.
Every NHL team is required to expose at least two experienced forwards and one experienced defenseman for Seattle to choose from. Bowey, who wasn’t even on the Hawks’ roster until a few weeks ago and isn’t a big part of their future plans, now massively helps the franchise in that regard.
Although much can and will happen between now and the expansion draft, Bowey’s situation is an example of the Hawks — like every other organization — planning ahead for it.
General manager Stan Bowman feels confident the Hawks won’t lose anyone integral.
“We have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to do,” Bowman said recently. “There’s some teams that are in a more perilous position to maybe lose a really important player. I’m not sure that’s the case for us. We’re positioned pretty well.”
The 2021 rules are the same as in 2017, when the Golden Knights plucked Trevor van Riemsdyk out of Chicago.
Teams must expose at least three experienced players, as described, who are under contract for another year. The Hawks are indeed well-positioned for this. Bowey and fourth-line forwards Ryan Carpenter and Matthew Highmore are all relatively low-value players who already meet the requirements.
On the other end, teams can either protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or eight total skaters (in any combination) and one goaltender.
Last time, 24 of 30 teams — including the Hawks — chose the first option. But both could be logically viable for the Hawks this time.
Before that decision must be made, though, the Hawks know Kirby Dach, Dominik Kubalik, Pius Suter, Philipp Kurashev, Ian Mitchell, Adam Boqvist, Nicolas Beaudin and all their other first- and second-year players are automatically exempt. That’s a huge portion of their young core that won’t count against the protection limit.
Conversely, the four veterans with no-movement clauses — Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook — require automatic protection (unless convinced to waive their clauses) and do count against the limit.
The Hawks will also almost certainly protect Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strome, plus Kevin Lankinen as their one goalie.
The players Bowman will really have to make decisions about are forwards Alex Nylander and Brandon Hagel and defensemen Connor Murphy, Calvin de Haan and Nikita Zadorov.
If the Hawks protect two of those three defensemen, they can’t protect either forward.
Alternatively, the Hawks could protect just one of the three defensemen (likely Murphy), exposing the other two to Seattle, and in exchange protect Nylander, Hagel and another forward — probably David Kampf, Andrew Shaw if he recovers from his latest concussion or Mattias Janmark if the Hawks plan to re-sign him (he’s an unrestricted free agent this summer).
Depending on the route taken, the Hawks could end up exposing several decent — albeit not star — players. But other teams are in far worse situations, and Bowman quickly emphasizes the Hawks can only actually lose one guy no matter what.
“We’ve done a lot of scenario-planning and a lot of ‘What if?’ [exercises],” Bowman said. “Part of it depends on what Seattle does and who they pick from other teams. You can look at it now and say, ‘Well, they’re probably going to be interested in this player.’ But if they end up getting a lot of similar types of guys, they might look for someone else.
“It’s hard to totally game-plan it, but we have spent a lot of time preparing ourselves. We’re going to be fine.”
