2 Days Away: Forward Thinking

When the 30 protected-players lists rolled in from NHL headquarters at 7 a.m. Sunday morning, the Kraken hockey operations moved from mock draft to real draft. There was a quick stop in between.
"It was sort of surreal," said Kraken GM Ron Francis late Sunday afternoon. "We've been looking at things, practicing things. It's exciting to be in real mode and pick a team from what we saw today."

The 30 names, one from each team excluding Vegas, are due Wednesday at 7 a.m. sharp. Seattle is obligated to select 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies. That's 26. Four more players can be selected from any position.
There are some other basics in the NHL Expansion Draft™ rule book. A couple of guideposts will stand out for the hockey operations crew (Francis, front office executives, scouts, analytics specialists) over the next two days and nights. One is 20 players must be under contract for the 2021-22. The other is the final 30 players must have an aggregate salary equal to at least 60 percent ($48.9 million) of the league's $81.5 million salary cap.
As our
"Countdown to Expansion" series
continues, let's consider the forwards available to the Kraken, saving defensemen and goalies for Tuesday's installment.

Surprise Elements

Like any worthy Hollywood script, the first act of this 2021 NHL Expansion Draft™ screenplay features inciting incidents that set up the storylines. Among the forwards, the biggest surprise (especially from season-end until now) is St. Louis not protecting Vladimir Tarasenko.
The Blues right wing is an elite scorer who notched 11 goals and six assists during the St. Louis championship run to the 2019 Stanley Cup. Three shoulder surgeries have limited Tarasenko to 34 games over the last two seasons. In the five previous regular seasons of his nine-year NHL career to date, the Russian-born forward recorded a goals string of 37-40-39-33-33.
The surgeries and related treatment created a rift between the Blues and Tarasenko, who requested a trade about two months ago. While Tarasenko carries a $7.5 million cap hit with an injury cloud overhead, there are likely several NHL general managers interested in trading for scoring punch if the Kraken have other plans for St. Louis.
Another surprise for hockey media observers: The New York Islanders did not protect Jordan Eberle, who has enjoyed six 20-goal seasons and scored 16 in 55 games last season. Eberle, 31, has played 11 NHL seasons and was a first-round draft choice (Edmonton, 22nd overall) in 2008. The NYI forward group includes Josh Bailey, a 13-season veteran, who was stellar in this spring's playoffs with six goals (including some game changers) and seven assists over 19 games.
Three more names catching the collective eye are Carolina forward Nino Niederreiter, Columbus center Max Domi and Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog. Niederreiter has five 20-goal seasons in 11 years.
Domi, a six-year veteran, boasts a career year of 28 goals and 44 assists with Montreal in 2018-19. He has shoulder surgery in early June and is expected to miss the first month or two of the upcoming NHL season.
Landeskog is highly-respected by his teammates and plays strong on both the offensive and defensive ends.
Landeskog is an unrestricted free agent who reportedly is in a contract stalemate with the Avalanche. If he had re-signed with Colorado before Sunday morning, he would have been protected.
The Kraken are currently in an exclusive interview/negotiating window that allows the team to talk to any restricted and unrestricted free agents not protected by their team. If they reach agreement with any player, it counts as the pick for the player's most recent team.

Cup Winners' Forwards Runneth Over

The Tampa Bay Lightning was one of only three teams that diverted from the option to protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie. TBL opted to keep its top-four defensemen together in their hunt for a third straight Stanley Cup next June.
Keeping the D-core of Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, Erik Cernak, and Mikhail Sergachev intact led to a bevy of Lightning forwards under scrutiny in the Kraken expansion draft war room. Veterans Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn and Yanni Gourde would all be formidable choices-and all were high performers in the 2020 and 2021 postseasons.
Rookie Ross Colton, who starred for the American Hockey League's Syracuse Crunch for two seasons, is another attractive possibility from the Cup champs. Colton scored the game-winning goal in the 1-0 Game 5 then clinched the title for TBL.
You can link to a complete list of all forwards protected and/or available from each of the 30 teams
here
.