Looking at the expansion teams going into their 3rd season

[Victor 10,580]

We're coming to the end of the second season of the S73 expansion teams and that means one thing – it's crunch time. See, in their third seasons, each of Moscow, Prague, and D.C. would make their first playoff appearances while Malmo won a Victory Cup and went all the way to the finals. So while that's no indication of future success as evidenced by the varying trajectories of the previous four expansion teams, it does put the pressure on the current cohort a bit – if you can't make the playoffs three seasons in, do you even know what you're doing?

 

Well let's have a look at what the expansion teams have done so far and whether that has put them in a good position to hit that first milestone.

 

London United

Expansion Draft: Jay Jones, James Rose, Keith Krestanovich, and effectively Julian Nousiainen (via Guy Lesieur trade)

S73 Draft: Alec Volchenkov, The Terrible Trivium

S74 Draft: Ryan Schwarz, Kasper Kunkkunen, Kevin Malone and a few guys in the system

 

I think GM Roger McWolf III rightfully won plaudits for his expansion draft performance after securing the first selection there, and it holds up very well in hindsight. Half his forward core comes from that initial event as well as franchise defenceman James Rose. It's been a calm and steady approach since as he has effectively secured his top four forwards in the subsequent drafts and is giving Rose some support at the back. Also quite importantly, Kevin Malone looks to be London's franchise goaltender, which is a position that all of this quarter seem to have sorted out early on (unlike Moscow, D.C. and Prague in fact).

 

There aren't any huge steals to write home about but also no obvious misses either – it seems everyone McWolf has picked for his team has repaid his trust. The roster is pretty much complete and will be a competitive one soon, but will the United be confident enough to add some veteran options to their young (and cap-friendly) squad this off-season so they can replace Riga as one of the conference's main challengers?

 

Warsaw Predators

Expansion Draft: Latrell Mitchell (not quite, but they drafted Dayne and Bridges who were traded to Calgary in the Mitchell deal)

S73 Draft: Dakota Lamb, Ajay Krishna, Victor Grachev, Jeremy Lin

S74 Draft: Aloe Dear, Tim Waters, Lexi Glass, Chris Reynolds

 

One of the reasons London might hesitate to go big in S75 is that the Predators may be better positioned to make the first move in Europe. With a more developed goalie and a core player about to his his prime in Mitchell, Warsaw is ready to reap the benefits of a more aggressive approach in the past couple of drafts, which has involved trading up and into the drafts to secure a more mature prospect pool early on.

 

Like with the United, it appears to have paid off in the sense that all of Warsaw's picks at the top end are working out, without needing later round steals to bail them out. It's not a complete roster yet, but perhaps it's the last couple of holes on forward and defence that GM Damien Walec will take to the trade and free agency market to address.

 

Chicago Phoenix

Expansion Draft: Squirrely Dan, Adam Syreck

S73 Draft: Jean-Pierre Camus, Matty Socks

S74 Draft: Christian Mingle, Lee Xin, and a few guys in the system

 

Chicago has probably been the quietest of the expansion teams, having made no trades in their first season and since then never having traded a pick higher than the 3rd round. The cautious approach is similar to London's and in particular their haul from the past two entry drafts is similar in quality with 3 core players to build around in Camus, Socks, and Mingle. However, the Phoenix had the first real draft dud in S73 27th overall pick S Kuchar and targeting a couple older, S71, players in the expansion draft has resulted in a couple players with a lower upside than their expansion rivals got.

 

Peculiarly, it looked like Phoenix would set an expansion team record with a playoff appearance in their second season, perhaps owing to a lighter schedule or a weaker conference, but that dream faded late on in S74 and I'm not sure they'll be too keen to go hard this off-season either. Chicago still needs a bit of polishing around the edges, particularly on defence, so I think a steadier approach will be the better option for the time being.

 

Los Angeles Stars

Expansion Draft: Markus Nygren, Gary Neal and via Sigard Gunnar trade, Lester Green

S73 Draft: Jeffrey Pines, Mikeal Keef, Jiggly Gumballs

S74 Draft: Doug Dimmadome

 

Finally, we come to what's ended up being the shallowest team across the expansion franchises. There's two key reasons for that. Firstly, LA's expansion draft strategy was to target older players – a S68, S69, and S71 forward specifically and while that brought some individual success – Gunnar's three trophies in S73 are the only ones won by an expansion franchise – it does mean fewer core players for when they're competitive. Secondly, the Gunnar trade did land the pick to draft Green, a very promising young defenceman, but they did give up a few more draft picks to make it work, with picks being a rare commodity for a young franchise.

 

Coupled with a gamble that didn't work out in drafting goalie Drew Minott in S73, the Stars had to go for Dimmadome in S74, thus leaving only the early start of a core roster for the time being. It's far from catastrophic – finishing near the bottom of the league in S74 will also be a helpful start to getting more top talent in the system – but it does mean that like Chicago, LA probably won't rush into a playoff race just yet.

 

 

And there you have it – I'd say the European expansion teams are closer to making a playoff push in S75, especially Warsaw, but ironically there's a lot more teams in the way on that side of the ocean – other than Riga, the remaining 5 playoff contenders from S74 will look to remain in the hunt for the cup. Meanwhile, despite New York being in the midst of a rebuild and Calgary, D.C., and Toronto arguably having question marks as cup contenders, it does't appear that LA and Chicago are in a position to seize the day just yet with perhaps a conference imbalance in favour of Europe in our immediate future.

[Victor 10,580]

1,090 words so will be 2 weeks of this bad boy.