Before 30 NHL teams release the list of players available for the Kraken, many of them are shuffling the deck to make sure they’re in good position for the Seattle expansion draft.
Rather than losing Ryan Graves, Colorado Avalanche traded him to New Jersey. Rather than worry about whether 2020 playoff hero Anton Khudobin would get snapped up, Dallas took goaltender Ben Bishop’s suggestion to expose him instead. Rather than trading or risking the Kraken nabbing defenseman Matt Dumba, Minnesota bought out Ryan Suter and Zach Parise for the expansion draft and other reasons.
“It was a contributing part of the decision,” Wild general manager Bill Guerin said.