Five years ago, the Penguins sent a second-round pick to Vegas to ensure that the Golden Knights would select goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in the 2017 Expansion Draft.
The 2021 Expansion Draft - set for July 21 at 8 PM on ESPN2 - will be much less predictable for the Penguins, as general manager Ron Hextall doesn't expect to make a similar deal with Seattle, who will enter the league next season as the NHL's 32nd franchise.
Penguins in the Midst of Final Prep for Expansion Draft
Teams must submit their protected lists to the league by 5 PM EST on Saturday
On Wednesday, the Kraken will select one player from each team, excluding the Golden Knights, for a total of 30 - at least 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies.
"Rather than give up a couple of assets to try to keep someone, I think we'll probably lose a pretty good player," Hextall said.
That's what happened when Hextall was Philadelphia's general manager back in 2017. After signing Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to a two-year contract extension on March 1 of that year, the Flyers ultimately decided to leave the forward exposed in the draft, where he was selected by Vegas.
"He was a really good player for us for a few years. Since he left, he's had a nice career," said Penguins director of player personnel Chris Pryor, who was also with the Flyers at the time, in an upcoming episode of The Scoop podcast. "It's the price of expansion. We're aware of that. Unfortunately, we can't protect everybody. Somebody is going to be exposed. We're going to lose a good player. It's a sacrifice you have to make, and you have to just move on."
While there's a lot that Hextall, Pryor and the rest of the Penguins brass can take from their previous experience, with the salary cap remaining flat for next season instead of rising like it normally does, that could affect what teams ultimately decide to do.
"It's a tough one, because everybody's got different assets," Hextall said during his season-ending media availability. "Young assets and older assets and cap issues. I could see some players being out there this year just because of the flat salary cap. I think it's going to be different, but I do think we all learned our lessons from last time."
The Seattle draft will follow the same rules as the Vegas draft. Current clubs are allowed to protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie - which is the option Pittsburgh is planning to take - or eight skaters (forwards and defensemen) and one goalie.
Teams must submit their protected lists to the league by 5 PM Eastern time on Saturday, and those lists will be announced publicly on Sunday. The Penguins are currently hard at work finalizing theirs.
"There's a number of different scenarios, and we're still working," Pryor told Getzoff. "It is challenging, because we have a good team and we have a good core group of guys."
Here are the conditions for the protected lists, and how those affect the Penguins:
* All players with no-movement clauses at the time of the draft, and who decline to waive those clauses, must be protected and will be counted toward their team's applicable protection limits.
The Penguins have three players with no-movement clauses: their core leadership group of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
The team does have a number of other players with modified no-trade clauses, but they are not eligible to be protected.
* All first- and second-year professionals, and all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection and will not be counted toward protection limits.
The most notable player from this group is defenseman John Marino, who just finished his second full NHL season.
Other Penguins in this group include the rookies on entry-level contracts who spent time in Pittsburgh last year: Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Drew O'Connor and Radim Zohorna.
In addition, all NHL teams must meet the following minimum requirements for exposure:
* One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played in at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.
That list consists of the following players: Mike Matheson, Brian Dumoulin, Marcus Pettersson, Chad Ruhwedel
* Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.
That list consists of the following players: Teddy Blueger, Jeff Carter, Jake Guentzel, Kasperi Kapanen, Sam Lafferty, Jared McCann, Bryan Rust, Brandon Tanev, Jason Zucker
The following players are currently not under contract for the 2021-22 season:
RESTRICTED: Forwards Zach Aston-Reese and Mark Jankowski
UNRESTRICTED: Forwards Colton Sceviour, Evan Rodrigues and Frederick Gaudreau and defenseman Cody Ceci
Even if a player is set to be an unrestricted free agent, they can still be protected. Though it's worth noting that the Kraken have an exclusive window from July 18-21 to interview and potentially sign pending free agents who are left unprotected. If they sign a player in that window, it counts as their pick from their former team.
* And finally, one goalie who is under contract in 2021-22 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to 2021-22.
Both Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith are under contract for the 2021-22 season.