Winnipeg Jets: Could History Repeat From Vegas Expansion Draft?

As the NHL offseason officially started on Thursday morning after the Tampa Bay Lightning won their second Stanley Cup in a row after beating the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 in game five of the finals, hockey fans and Winnipeg Jets supporters can start looking ahead to the many key offseason dates in the coming weeks.

One key date during the offseason and what should be an extremely fun and interesting event to watch is the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft on Wednesday, July 21 at 7:00 p.m. central time.

During the draft, the Kraken will get to select one unprotected player from each franchise, excluding the Vegas Golden Knights, as they begin to build their inaugural roster for their first season in the NHL.

There is a lot of projections about who the Winnipeg Jets will protect and who may be left open to be the one selected by the Kraken, but could history repeat itself before the draft?

The Winnipeg Jets may try to complete a similar move before the Seattle expansion draft as they did back in 2017 with Vegas

Although the Jets from a few years ago did not have the same roster depth as they do now, they still had to leave a good amount of their key depth players unprotected in the Golden Knights expansion draft. This is a similar issue that may occur this year as the Jets will be forced to leave a few key players unprotected in Seattle’s draft.

So, Kevin Cheveldayoff and the Jets front office decided to orchestrate a trade with Vegas sending them the Jets 2017 first-round draft pick and the Columbus Blue Jackets 2019 third-round pick for a 2017 first-round pick and expansion draft considerations.

In turn, Vegas selected pending unrestricted free agent, Craig Thorburn from Winnipeg. Thorburn then did not even sign with Vegas and subsequently went to free agency and signed with the St. Louis Blues.

Will the Winnipeg Jets make a trade again?

With the fact that we could see players including Mason Appleton, Andrew Copp, Logan Stanley, Dylan DeMelo, and/or Mikhail Berdin on the unprotected list, there is a good chance we could see the Jets work out a trade with Seattle to avoid one of these players getting taken.

The question is who will be involved in this trade? We could see Winnipeg send an earlier-round draft pick and/or a prospect to Seattle in exchange for expansion draft considerations and potentially a late-round pick.

The expansion draft considerations will mean Seattle will select someone who the Jets want to let go of and all parties of the trade will leave happy.

It will be interesting to see if the Jets do pull a trigger on a trade with the Kraken in the coming weeks before the draft. Stay tuned to our site for more news and rumors involving the Jets during the offseason!

Winnipeg Jets Fans: Do you think the Winnipeg Jets will complete a trade with Seattle in an effort to protect players? Leave your comments below!

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