As the expansion draft approaches, there are a handful of questions I keep coming back to. I keep asking myself what lessons the GMs have learned from Vegas, what the flat cap might do to prices, how quickly Seattle could possibly contend, and more. As far as individual teams go, there are few more interesting to me than the San Jose Sharks.

Not that the Sharks are particularly interesting in general, but they have over $32M a season in cap hits committed to Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Martin Jones for the next three years. Take out Jones, and they have the three defencemen signed for the next four years (and over $26M a season). Karlsson is the youngest at 31 years old with Vlasic at 34 and Burns at 36. All this is very, very bad for San Jose and their medium-term future.

According to Cap Friendly, of the three defencemen, Burns is the only one who is available to be moved in expansion. This is because he has a modified no-trade clause, not a no-move clause like Karlsson and Vlasic. In fact, despite a handful of NTCs on the San Jose roster, they're largely fine for forced protections, as it's only Karlsson and Vlasic requiring them.

I guess my question is this: is it worth it for San Jose to pay the Kraken to take Burns off their hands? In a nutshell, it could make sense. Maybe they can trade a roster player and a second-rounder next year or something for the Kraken to take Burns, but again, is it worth it?

Often this past season, I've brought up the age of the Sharks. I am far from the only one, but it's a salient point worth remembering: this a very old team. Beyond the three defencemen being 31, 34, and 36 for next year, Logan Couture will be 32 and Evander Kane 30. The only member of the "core" under 25 is Timo Meier and he turns 25 in October. Tomas Hertl turns 28 this year, his final year before hitting UFA. That means he'll be 29 when his next contract starts, and if it's with San Jose and all those guys are still around, well, add another year to their age.

Without a stream of young guys coming to the league like fellow California teams Los Angeles and Anaheim, this is a franchise on the verge of a very dark period. And it's not as if this is a team knocking on the door of a Cup like the Sharks teams of 5+ years ago, either. Over the last two regular seasons, the Sharks are 17^th by expected goal share at 5-on-5 and 28^th by points percentage. Here is the kicker out of all this: the only team with a worse actual goal share at 5-on-5 over the last two seasons than San Jose (43.3 percent) is Detroit at 38.7 percent. That's right: the Sharks have a worse goal share at 5-on-5 over the last two years than Buffalo. Marinate on that for a minute.

That is why I ask if it's in San Jose's best interest to shed futures for the ability to get rid of the Burns contract. Sure, it'll help clear cap space, but are they $8M in well-spent money away from turning this team from bottom-of-the-barrel into a Cup contender? This year or anytime in the next 3-4 years? I don't think they are, but NHL GMs are not quick to give up on their franchise. I personally think the best thing San Jose can do is endure some real tough seasons for the next few years, let those bad deals start running out, and reload for the future. That way, when the next generation is hopefully ready in 4-5 years, all those contracts will be gone and the team can really build for a Cup.

It may not be palatable to Sharks fans for this franchise to basically go dark for three more years, considering what the last two have been. Telling fans that they need to be patient for five years is a tough sell, but I'm not sure there's another way out of this. The Sharks aren't a potential Cup contender in the wings here; this is a bad team that has a lot of bad contracts. If they had a bevy of prospects coming like Los Angeles, maybe they could endure having Karlsson and Vlasic. But they don't, so they won't. This team needs some lean years, and it could start with Burns being on the move this summer.

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Speaking of the expansion draft, the Stars signed Blake Comeau to a one-year deal worth $1M. As pointed out by beat writer Matthew DeFranks, this accomplishes a big requirement for Dallas:

Assuming Dallas goes the 6-3 route for protection, their list has Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and Esa Lindell because they have NMCs. Add Roope Hintz, Denis Gurianov, Joe Pavelski, and someone like Joel Kiviranta, and they have their forwards covered. Add John Klingberg and Miro Heiskanen to Lindell and they have their defencemen. Signing Comeau ensures they can keep their eight core pieces for at least one more year while keeping someone like Kiviranta or Jason Dickinson around.

I don't think Comeau has much to be worried about; whichever of Kiviranta or Dickinson doesn't get protected could be taken, or, more likely, Anton Khudobin. And that's probably a very good thing for Dallas as Comeau-Faksa-Cogliano was one of the best defensive lines in hockey this year. Having them around for another year could be very important to this team getting back to contender status.

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This might have been the first night of the playoffs where I didn't bother to finish watching the evening's games. I put on a movie after the second period of Lightning-Islanders Game 5. This was a complete demolition from the very first puck drop as Tampa was up 3-0 with five minutes left in the first. That chased Semyon Varlamov from the net, though he'd eventually return as Ilya Sorokin took a shot up high in the second period and left the game momentarily. He did return, and went back in the cage. (This was a weird game.) It was 6-0 through two, and I'm just assuming the Lightning kept their foot on the Islanders' throat.

We have seen games like this before. The Golden Knights had one against the Habs before the Habs pulled a great game of their own. One game doesn't mean anything, but if this is the Tampa that New York gets in Game 6, this series could be over.

It was nice to see Steven Stamkos get on the board. There has been a bit of speculation that he got hurt and has been hampered a bit, but he scored twice in this one. This team needs Stamkos and Cirelli to be a great second line if they want to finish the repeat job.

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Ever have a feeling in the pit of your stomach that you just *know* something bad is about to happen? Maybe it's a phone call at an odd time, maybe it's the way someone looks at you on the street. We just have that instinct that something bad is going to happen.

I got that feeling when looking at Edmonton's cap situation.

Sitting here today, the Oilers have over $20M in cap space for next year. That is a great thing for a team that has struggled with bad cap hits for years now. But here's a problem: Tyson Barrie and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are both UFA, Kailer Yamamoto is RFA, and Oscar Klefbom's future is still very muddled. If Klefbom isn't ready for next year, maybe Ken Holland feels pressured to bring back Barrie, who did put up 48 points in 56 games this year. They probably don't want to lose RNH either, so if they bring both back, it's easy to see them tying up over half the cap space this team has available. Throw a couple million a year at Yamo and all of a sudden, the Oilers are at $5M-$6M in cap space with a team that looks very similar to the one that got pasted by the Jets in the playoffs.

So, let's say the Oilers do this. Let's say the team signs Barrie and RNH to long(ish)-term contracts and bring Yamo back. Then they go out and give 3x$4M to Mike Hoffman or something like that. Now, this is a team that is basically running back their 2021 roster plus Hoffman (or Foligno, or Duclair). Now, they're a team that is the same roster as the one from two months ago, plus someone like Hoffman, with a few million in cap space left. Is that a Cup contender? I am not sure.

That is why I say I have this bad feeling. They still have over $13M a season in commitments to Neal, Kassian, and Koskinen. If nothing significant changes, it sure feels like this team will just keep running on their hamster wheel. Hopefully I'm wrong.