Jack Studnicka (Kirk Luedeke photo)
Dom, Reed and Kirk got together for a 3 Amigos reunion, making sure to practice social distancing in the process.
We’ve got more than 2 hours of (mostly) hockey talk, breaking down questions that readers submitted. A lot of it centers around uncertainty around David Krejci and Torey Krug going forward, Jack Studnicka’s promising early returns, and a look at how expansion might impact the NHL and Boston Bruins in 2021.
We recorded the audio before news of the Jack Ahcan signing broke, so we don’t have anything on the newest free agent signing for the B’s, but you can check out the quick-hitter we posted on him here yesterday on the blog.
So, let’s go- here’s the audio file. We’ve also posted it over at SoundCloud so that you can listen on the go…
SoundCloud download:
scoutingpost 
Thank you guys , stay safe and all the best from PEI..
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Great job. Questions. Krejci is UFA and they don’t have to protect him also Fredrick would have to be protected Why can’t they protect Vladar? Rask is UFA. Couldn’t they trade for a goalie to expose? Thanks john
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Hello John- Thanks for listening. Yes, assuming that nothing happens between now and then, both Krejci and Rask will be pending UFA on July 1, but technically both still under contract when the expansion draft will happen in June of 2021.We’re still a good 15 months away from the expansion draft and what myriad scenarios could unfold as we get closer to that event. Given that we don’t even know what the landscape will look like for the Bruins when they have to submit their protected list in June of 2021, we’re going to leave it at that.
Here’s a helpful article that lists out some basic and more specific criteria that teams must follow when they release their protected lists for the next expansion draft:
https://www.nhl.com/news/seattle-2021-nhl-expansion-draft-rules-same-as-vegas-golden-knights-followed/c-302586918
One final note- Neither Trent Frederic nor Daniel Vladar can be exempt from the expansion draft because of their years of AHL service. If you’re asking about protecting Vladar over Rask, given that one player, even if pending UFA status and some questions about his NHL future, is one of the best Bruins goalies of all time, while the other has yet to play a single minute of NHL hockey, then we’ll let that speak for itself. At least, that’s how it stands in March of 2020.
-Kirk, Dom & Reed
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