Over the past week or so, we have had a lot of conversation here regarding a hypothetical NHL expansion draft proposed by some at SBN Hockey. Last Thursday, we had to submit the Hurricanes protected player list and exposed three players in the process.
Left available for the two expansion teams were Anton Babchuk, Tom Kostopoulos, and Patrick Dwyer.
James Mirtle chose the players for the new Quebec Nordiques while Gabe Desjardins selected the players for Winnipeg. After the jump, the good news and the bad news for the Hurricanes.
The good news is that Kostopoulos and Dwyer survived the draft and stay with the Canes. The bad news is that Babchuk was nabbed by Quebec. Here are the complete results of the draft:
Quebec took three goalies: Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Ondrej Pavelec, and Antti Niemi.
Quebec defensemen include: Barret Jackman, Craig Rivet, Rostislav Klesla, Anton Babchuk, Andrew Ference, Ruslan Salei, and Brett Festerling.
Nordique forwards are: Scott Gomez, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Ryan Malone, Chris Kelly, Erik Christensen, Kevin Porter, Steve Bernier, Tim Kennedy, Jordin Tootoo, Tomas Kopecky, Cory Sarich, Colby Armstrong, Justin Williams, Cory Stillman, Ryan Shannon, and Krys Barch.
Winnipeg took two goalies: Josh Harding and Erik Ersberg.
The defensemen are: Colin White, Roman Hamrlik, Adam Foote, Sean O`Donnell, Mattias Ohlund, Karlis Skrastins, John Scott, and Sami Salo.
The Jet forwards are: Michael Ryder, Radim Vrbata, Dan Carcillo, Vernon Fiddler, David Steckel, B.J. Crombeen, Shawn Horcoff, Rob Niedermayer, Scott Nichol, Brian Rolston, Tim Jackman, Drew Miller, Rick Rypien, Jerred Smithson, and Ryan Carter.
Interesting how some teams left higher paid players exposed and others did not. The Nordiques reunited former Canes Justin Williams, Cory Stillman, and Babchuk. Also hard to believe that Kostopoulos could not make the cut, but Caniacs are not complaining.
They will try to pit these two teams against each other in one of the popular video games. See the rest of the story at SBN Hockey.