It appears as though Gabriel Landeskog's run with Colorado is coming to an end. The UFA turns 29 in November but this isn't just any UFA. This is their captain, a guy who was drafted by them second overall 10 years ago. He has 171 points in his last 181 games, plays a tough two-way game, and has been through all the up-and-downs of the franchise over the last decade. This isn't an easy decision.

This obviously is a cap move. The baseline for Landeskog was Chris Kreider's contract, or seven years at $6.5M a season with a full NMC throughout. That is a hefty price for a 29-year-old power forward, and Landeskog will likely be more expensive because of his role on the team and his production of late. Nathan MacKinnon and Bowen Byram need new contracts in two years, Cale Makar needs one now, and they don't have any goalies signed at the moment. Not to mention needing to fill out their depth. Assigning over $7M in cap space to an asset that will probably start depreciating right away isn't prudent, no matter how hard the decision is.

The question is where Landeskog ends up. Not a lot of teams can afford him. Man, this feels like a Nashville signing waiting to happen.

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Bruins defenceman Kevan Miller has retired. He has been enduring brutal injuries for a couple years now and the team is going through a youth movement, so this all makes sense. He was a steady defenceman for them and his role will be tough to fill for them internally. All the best to Miller and his family in their next phase.

Brandon Carlo signed an extension for six years at $4.1M a season. Not a bad deal for a defensive defenceman but in the fantasy game, he’s all peripherals. Not much use here in points-only leagues.

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Some possibly huge Weber/Habs news:

I'm hearing the @CanadiensMTL won't protect Shea Weber for the expansion draft. Following the latest medical evaluations, he could miss all of next season. If not more.

— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) July 14, 2021

We will wait to see the details but this could change a lot for Montreal.

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It's only about a week until the expansion draft, and it's a topic I haven't covered much in these Ramblings. But I have seen both Ian and Dobber give their takes on expansion and I would be remiss if I didn't include my own. Readers can check out Ian's stab at it here and Dobber's here. Alex also took a look at what the impact might be on the players left behind, not taken in expansion, and that was a good read as well.

One of the tricks with expansion projections, as of right now, is that players are still being asked to waive their no-move clauses. Or, at least, they were as of Wednesday afternoon. Erik Johnson waiving his in Colorado on Tuesday is an example of how one player waiving an NMC can drastically alter what a team can do.

This is going to be a bit different from teams that have already been posted at the site for that reason. I know that Colorado can protect their top-4 defencemen now, so Samuel Girard or Devon Toews or Ryan Graves moving on to Seattle is not likely.

One thing I noticed looking at Dobber's team, then Ian's, then mine: it seems unlikely Seattle gets a top line like Vegas did right out of the gate. Now, in saying that, we didn't know William Karlsson would step in and score 43 goals in his first season with Vegas. Maybe Seattle gets a player like that; it's just I don't think they will. In that sense, it seems that unless some teams really start panicking about who is going to get picked, we won't see a bunch of top-line forwards heading to the Kraken. There just aren't a lot of teams that are so deep at defence that they're keeping four (besides places like Nashville or Colorado), and once you get to the eighth or ninth forward on most teams, there just isn't much left.

With all that out of the way – and with waived NMCs updated as much as I've seen – here is my crack at expansion. If there is an error, feel free to hit me up on Twitter for a correction.

This is how I approached my selections:

• I assumed some deference to veterans who probably shouldn't be protected but will be because of their status on their teams. That means even though guys like Mark Giordano, Brent Burns, and Nikita Zaitsev probably should be exposed, I think they'll be protected on their rosters.
• I am assuming that Seattle is not taking on a contract longer than three years unless they get paid handsomely to do so. In hopes that teams have learned their lessons, my assumption is that they won't get someone like Burns, who has four years left, which is when they'd have to sign any rookies they play in 2021-22.
• I am taking a little bit of liberty with who Seattle will take because this is a different type of front office. They have been vocal about being proponents for analytics, so I don't think they draft someone with bad analytic ratings unless they really have to.
• In relating to that last point, I think Seattle could take a chance on a lot of 22-25-year-olds whom they can hope break out into a top-line role at some point.
• The assumption is no true UFAs are taken. Maybe they will be, but that would likely have to be some sort of side deal we can't foresee.

With all that out of the way, here are my forward selections. Oh, and all this was done on the wonderful expansion draft simulator tool on Cap Friendly.

There are a couple teams that I'm very unsure of here, namely Carolina and Nashville. We heard that Nashville probably won't be protecting Matt Duchene and Carolina has multiple players that are worthy of selection, both up front and on the blue line. There is a lot of guessing here.

And when looking at that list, it's easy to see why the mention earlier of a lack of scoring power was made. There just isn't a lot of offence available on the bottom-half of the vast majority of teams. With the players we have, we can put together a lineup that looks something like this:

Frederic-Johnson-Nichushkin

Archibald-Larsson-Fast

Wagner-Carpenter-Sundqvist

Nieto-Howden-Acciari

When looking at that list, Acciari and Johnson are the only players with 20-goal seasons. Yes, this team could struggle to score.

There are some contentious selections so let's talk about them.

Missing from this list is Jakub Voracek. They could take him but drafting a 32-year-old with three years left at over $8M per season just feels like a waste. The only reason to do that is for intangibles, or if they think they're going to contend quickly. But, if they go with my picks, they'll have multiple Cup winners on the roster. They don't really need Voracek in any sense. For that reason, I went with a defenceman we'll talk about later.

The Avalanche losing someone like Nichushkin could be a big blow to them. They are likely going to lose Gabriel Landeskog to free agency and if they lose Nichushkin as well, on top of anyone else they might lose in free agency, well their forwards could be a bit weaker outside the top line next year.

What is going to happen in Vancouver? There really aren't a lot of players to protect, especially with their rookies getting exempt. That is why I have Antoine Roussel here but who actually ends up being protected by and selected from the Canucks is very much up in the air.

But, the real strength of this team is the blue line. Here is what I have for selections:

This is a very good blue line, right? At the least, there's a lot of chance for generating offence, which is what this team will need with their lack of forwards. With this list of blue liners, we can put together a corps like this:

Kulak-Tanev

Gostisbehere-Subban

Dermott-Shattenkirk

That leaves them with good blue liners like Colin Miller or Dylan DeMelo without a role. I have seen some mock expansions with Seattle taking Mason Appleton instead of DeMelo, and I can't argue with that. If the team is deep enough on the blue line where DeMelo would be the fourth RD, it makes sense to take a chance on a guy like Appleton up front. On the other hand, with four of these guys UFA in a year, I think they may want some long-term security on the blue line as they develop their own players in-house.

They also have a couple guys that could be a staple of the lineup for the next 5-6 years in Dermott, Stecher, and Kulak. All three guys have shown good underlying numbers and that's something Seattle would know. They are also young enough – even though a couple are 27 – that if the team is good in a few years' time, they'll still be effective.

One thing I did here was make sure they have a lot of RD. It seems like they're always in demand, and both Miller and Subban could be deadline trade bait to bolster the future without severely hampering the present.

Alright, let's get to the goalies:

There isn't a lot surprising here. I think most people have them taking Khudobin as their starter for the next couple seasons with Vanacek (or Copley, but I think Vanacek because of age) as his back-up. As far as the third goalie goes, I just took a young guy. I won't dig too deep into goalies here as the starting duo seems sort of locked and the third guy will be in the AHL anyway.

Alright, that's my team as of noon on Wednesday. Thoughts?