The Elephant in the Room: The Goaltending Situation

In case you have been living under a rock, the NHL will be expanding to Las Vegas next season.  As with previous expansions, a draft will be held and present NHL teams will be forced to expose a certain group of players per these rules.  One way or another, every team will protect at least one of their goaltenders, and players with limited/no-movement clauses are required to be protected.  Long story short, if things stay the way they are now, the Pittsburgh Penguins have to protect veteran Marc-Andre Fleury, leaving up-and-comer Matt Murray to be possibly snatched up by the new Las Vegas franchise.  Judging by the totally-cool-but-incredibly-tedious CapFriendly.com Expansion Draft Tool, the Penguins are not alone in having a challenging goaltending decision to make before the draft.  However, Matt Murray is the only goaltender around who is 22 years old and has already backstopped his team to a Stanley Cup championship, putting the Penguins in the position of having two Cup-winning goaltenders to deal with. Continue reading