SBNation Expansion draft: UPDATE: Ryder and Ference drafted.

On the other hand, if you think the expansion team wouldn’t take Thomas, no reason to waste a protected space (like Rangers wouldn’t protect Redden, Hawks Campbell, Oilers Souray, etc).

Before I ask a follow up question, how many players can be picked from one team? And once a player is picked, can some others be pulled back?

Thats a good point but I can’t decide if losing Thomas would be worse than losing Boychuck or Stuart and I also think that if all three were available, Boychuck or Stuart would probably be picked before Thomas so that “only one goalie or d-man” rule can make it interesting.

And I was half joking. I do think it’s a neat experiment, I’m a geek, I like experiments. I’m keeping an eye on it, but really more for who gets theoretically plucked from the Bruins than what the 2 teams would actually look like.

One of them asked me if you would do it and I told them you didn’t write for me.

Shawn Thornton may be a cup winner but he’s not good enough at hockey for it to make sense to expose Wheeler instead of him. Same goes for Paille and Campbell.

Those three have the appropriate levels of Pugnacity, Testosterone, Belligerence, and Truculence, for sure….but it’s skill that wins games. Cam Neely is lionized in this town because he was a hardass who as also a really good hockey player.

Campbell is a decent 4th line center. Players of his caliber are a dime a dozen. He is a modest improvement over Steve Begin, and nothing more.

Thornton’s the same story. Yeah, he’s a nice guy and sticks up for his teammates and excels at placing his fist in other players’ faces at high speeds, but again, that’s hardly irreplaceable.

Paille is a fine penalty killer with great wheels, who, if he had the ability to finish, would probably a 10-time all-star. Alas, if he could finish, Buffalo wouldn’t have given up on him. Nice 4th liner, good for wearing the other guys out a bit, but nothing more.

Wheeler floats sometimes, absolutely. He also has more potential than those other three combined and then some. Why would you take the chance that he’d achieve it somewhere else, when the other guys you’re protecting are easily replaceable? He’s a kid; he’s probably going to get a lot better. He wouldn’t be the first young player to float for a couple years before getting it through his head that he needs to work harder to use his talent. And incidentally, he’s not THAT bad a floater; he was one of Boston’s best penalty killers last year.

Rick James would agree.

Oh, agreed. No question.

That and I like sturm better.

Nice hit!