Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I'm surprised Shinkaruk has so many votes. He's probably not going to make the Flames roster next season so I don't know why LV would use a pick on a guy that will likely be available on waivers.
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Vegas doesn't get first priority on waivers. And whether a player makes another team's roster or not is not George McPhee's problem.
With teams eligible to protect 7 forwards and only 3 defencemen, there will be a lot of good defencemen available; so I don't see Vegas taking Kulak or Wotherspoon. There won't be an abundance of scoring forwards; so they will probably try to take chances on several prospects that have the potential to at least stop the gap. And they can meet the cap requirements of the expansion draft without taking on any big-money, underperforming contracts, so I doubt they're looking at Brouwer.
At this point, I see Shinkaruk roughly on a par with Baertschi and Granlund: a player who has to be put in an offensive role to have value, but isn't good enough at that role to crack the Flames' roster. Baertschi and Granlund were both good enough to make an offence-starved team in Vancouver, and did OK on that roster. Vegas is also going to be starved for offence, and will have room for that kind of player.