1992 NHL Expansion

For more about 1992 Expansion Draft, click here.

In 1989 the National Hockey League was a 21-team league. It had been so since 1979, when the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association joined. The decade that followed was the NHL's most stable since it began expanding in 1967. From 1967 to 1979 the NHL expanded five times adding sixteen teams in the process, had two teams relocate (the Golden Seals to Cleveland and Kansas City Scouts to Denver in 1976), and one that eventually effectively folded and ceased operations. From 1979 to 1989 the only franchise changes were the Atlanta Flames' move to Calgary in 1980 and Colorado Rockies' move to New Jersey in 1982, moves which solidified those franchises' foreseeable futures.

At the Board of Governors meeting in December of 1989 the NHL owners decided to change all that. They decided to expand again. The plan was the most ambitious since the first big expansion in 1967: the league would add seven teams by the year 2000, at least one by 1992. The league had just signed a new national broadcast agreement in the US with SportsChannel but it paled in comparison to what they had hoped it would be (SportsChannel ended up losing millions in the deal and became effectively defunct by the end of the broadcast agreement in 1992). It was hoped that expanding to new markets would solidify the NHL's case for demanding higher broadcast rights fees in its next negotiations. The NHL was after as big a TV deal as it could get and it was thought that more teams, particularly in the United States, would increase the league's exposure and potential TV market. Coincidentally this was the exact same reason that expansion in the 1960s was pursued in the first place (and a big reason why the California Seals remained in Oakland for nine forgettable years, but that's another story).

The most promising expansion site was San Jose, California. Howard Baldwin (former owner of the Hartford Whalers) and Morris Belzberg (Chairman and CEO of Budget Rent-a-car) were tentatively leading a push for a team in San Jose but the Gund brothers, owners of the Minnesota North Stars, announced their intention to move the North Stars there. The NHL reached a compromise with both groups in May, 1990 whereby the Gunds would get the expansion team in San Jose and Baldwin and Belzberg would buy the North Stars from them instead. That took care of the first team by '92.

The second and third expansion franchises were tentatively planned to begin play in 1992 or 1993, with the franchises being awarded by December, 1990. The three main criteria for acceptance were:

• the ownership group must have at least $100 million net worth
• the team must own or have a lease at an arena with at least 18,000 seats, and the team must receive the revenues from luxury boxes, concessions and other income streams from the arena
• the expansion fee would be $50 million, with $5 million due upon awarding of the franchise, $22.5 million due by June of 1991 and the remaining $22.5 million due by December 15, 1991.

That last criterion—fifty million dollars—would prove to be the biggest sticking point for most of the applications. The sale of the North Stars to Baldwin and Belzberg was for only $31.5 million. $50 million for an expansion team seemed to be far more than an NHL team was really worth, but for the NHL it was absolutely non-negotiable. Applicants would pay $50 million for their new teams or they simply wouldn't get one.

The NHL sent out an open request for proposals for 1992 expansion franchises with a deadline for initial application set for midnight, August 15, 1990. At that time they received 11 bids from 10 cities:

• Seattle, headed by Bill Ackerley. Ackerley was the son of Seattle SuperSonics owner Barry Ackerley. The Ackerleys planned to build a new arena in Seattle not far from the Kingdome. They proposed that their expansion team would play at the Seattle Center Coliseum, shared with the Sonics, until the new arena was complete. They did not want to front most of the money though and only wanted to retain a minority stake of the NHL team. They wanted a new NHL team to be a tenant in their arena more than anything.
• Two groups from San Diego. One was headed by Harry Cooper, owner of the San Diego Sports Arena, while the other was headed by Jerry Buss, owner of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, former owner of the Kings (he sold the team to Bruce McNall in 1988) and owner of the Forum in which the Lakers and Kings played.
• a group from Phoenix
• Milwaukee, headed by Lloyd Pettit, the owner of the IHL's Milwaukee Admirals (and former Blackhawks broadcaster). He and his wife, Jane Bradley Pettit, donated the money to build the Bradley Center arena.
• Houston, headed by Charlie Thomas, owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets and Ray Patterson, former GM of the Rockets. The team would play at The Summit, home of the Rockets, until a new arena was built.
• Hamilton, fronted by promoter Gerry Patterson (who in the past had been a player agent, executive director of the Canadian Football League Player's Association and commissioner of the National Lacrosse League (the one in the 1970s, unrelated to the modern NLL)). The team would play at Copps Coliseum, completed in 1987. Patterson would not name his financial backers at the time.
• Ottawa, headed by Bruce Firestone, Randy Sexton and Cyril Leeder of Terrace Investment Ltd. Terrace, a real estate development company, proposed to build a 22,000 seat arena in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa.
• St. Petersburg, Florida; headed by Peter Karmanos of Detroit, owner of Compuware, and fronted by former NHL player Jim Rutherford. The team would play in the Florida Suncoast Dome, a then-unfinished baseball stadium, until a hockey-specific arena was built later.
• Tampa, Florida (just across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg); fronted by former NHL player Phil Esposito. Esposito's financial backers were the Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt hotel chain. The team would play in a new hockey arena to be built near the existing Tampa Stadium, home of the NFL's Buccaneers.
• Miami, represented by Boston businessman Godfrey Wood. His ownership group comprised several partners, including investment banker John W. Henry (then-owner of the Pacific Coast League's Tucson Toros baseball club). The team would play at Miami Arena.

Each bidder was to submit a $100,000 deposit, refundable in full until September 7 and thereafter only $65,000 refundable.

It didn't take long for one of the groups to drop out entirely. The Phoenix group was composed of a large group of small businessmen who didn't believe that they would be able to fund a team in Phoenix. On August 19, only days after submitting their application, they withdrew. (They didn't even pay the $100,000 deposit in the first place.)

The bid by Lloyd Pettit of Milwaukee seemed to be relatively strong. The new team would play at Bradley Center alongside the Bucks basketball team and Pettit was experienced and well-regarded in operating a hockey team. Despite the apparent strength of Pettit's bid he withdrew it on October 9, about a week before an interim presentation to the NHL Board of Governors. The reason was the money. Pettit's group analyzed the potential revenue of an NHL team in Milwaukee and found that it wasn't feasible, particularly given the non-negotiable $50 million expansion fee.

On November 28, 1990, only eight days before the final presentations, Charlie Thomas's group from Houston did the same, for the same reasons. They were open to being part of another round of expansion bids in 1993 or 1994 but at the time it just didn't make financial sense to them.

In the interim Jerry Buss had shifted the geographic focus of his bid from San Diego to Anaheim, a suburb of Los Angeles best known for being the home of the Disneyland amusement park and the California Angels of baseball's American League. A new arena in Anaheim was in the planning stages and Buss wanted to get his foot in the door there. Buss didn't actually have a tentative lease agreement at any arena; he planned on trying to get the best lease he could and his bid was an open-ended one for somewhere in southern California.

The least likely group to succeed in getting one of the new franchises seemed to be Esposito's Tampa group. The proposed team, already anointed with the moniker "Tampa Bay Lightning", had no home and no owner: the Pritzker family backed out of the deal on October 18 and the preliminary motion to fund the new Tampa Coliseum was voted down by Tampa's city council on December 4, two days before the final presentations. Esposito searched far and wide for new financial backers and had a tentative agreement with a group of Japanese companies led by Fuji Bank going in to the final presentation on December 6. They still had no firm plan for an arena but would continue pushing Tampa to build the new coliseum and would seek a temporary lease with another venue for the team's first couple years.

By contrast Karmanos's bid for St. Petersburg appeared to be the strongest. Funding wasn't a problem and the team secured a four-year lease with the Florida Suncoast Dome, which could have been extended to up to 20 years. The stadium would be modified to suit hockey; in fact a pre-season game between the Kings and Penguins was held there in September of 1990 using a temporary ice plant to create the ice surface, and they set a new record for attendance at an NHL game with 25,581 fans in the stands.

Hamilton's bid was eventually supported by Ron Joyce, owner of the Tim Hortons donut and coffee shop chain. Joyce would own 90% of the team with the rest split among several minority partners.

One by one the candidates presented to the NHL Board of Governors at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida on December 6, 1990. At the end of the day the news broke: there would be new NHL teams in 1992 in Ottawa and, surprisingly, Tampa.

The San Diego bid wasn't ever in consideration. Harry Cooper attended the meeting and presented anyway, hoping to emphasize that despite having no firm bid package put together in 1990 he was still interested in expansion at some time in the 1990s. Buss's non-committal bid for somewhere in southern California, probably Anaheim, wasn't given any serious consideration either.

The Seattle bidders didn't present at all. In the morning Bill Ackerley and his associate from First Chicago Bank, Bill Lear, withdrew their application. Their (former) partners were left in the lobby, stunned. The Ackerleys never built their arena and the Sonics continued to play at the Seattle Center Coliseum, heavily renovated in the mid-'90s and renamed KeyArena, until the team moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. Ackerley sold the Sonics in 2001.

The Hamilton, Miami and St. Petersburg bids were rejected for one reason: money. They refused to pay the expansion fees in full following the schedule given by the NHL. The Hamilton group wanted to put $5 million down immediately, pay $20 million in 1991, and the remaining $25 million over the course of the following seven years. They anticipated having to pay indemnities to the Maple Leafs and Sabres and felt that the $50 million up front, months before the team would even begin play, was too onerous given the uncertainty around territorial indemnifications.

The Miami bid was rejected because John Henry (who took over the Miami bid from Godfrey Wood) wanted to pay $30 million of the expansion fees by the end of 1991 and the remaining $20 million over the course of many years afterward. He also had no firm lease agreement at Miami Arena, although it was expected that anyone who could put together the financing would get an agreement to play there. Henry would go on to become owner of the Florida Marlins baseball club in 1999 (he sold the team to Jeffrey Loria in 2002), and has since founded Fenway Sports Group. Fenway Sports Group owns Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox, 80% of New England Sports Network (the other 20% is owned by Jeremy Jacobs's Delaware North Companies, owner of the Boston Bruins) and the Liverpool Football Club.

The St. Petersburg bid, the arguable front-runner that day, was rejected because they were only willing to pay the first $5 million immediately if it was refundable and the other $45 million over the course of several years.

The Ottawa bidders, who arrived at the hotel that day with local supporters including a marching band, were willing to pay the $50 million fee in full at the prescribed times. The arena project in Kanata was not yet finalized and approval had to go through the Ontario Municipal Board so the team would play at least its first couple seasons at the Ottawa Civic Centre, which had been the home of the WHA's Ottawa Nationals and briefly the home of the Ottawa Civics née Denver Spurs in 1976. (Trivia: the Ottawa Civic Centre was also home to the Ottawa 67's junior team and was built under the north stands of the much larger football stadium at Lansdowne Park. As of the writing of this post it is closed while renovations to Frank Clair Stadium are carried out.) Phil Esposito's Tampa bid was also willing to accept the expansion fee schedule; Esposito secured funding from the Japanese. Despite having no agreement to play anywhere and having only gotten the funding for the team in a scant few days before the presentation from dubious Japanese sources the NHL accepted the bid. The Tampa and Ottawa proponents were the only ones willing to pay the expansion fees on time and in full so they were the only ones accepted.

The two teams would have almost a year and a half to prepare for their expansion draft, shore up their finances and finalize their agreements to build new arenas. Over the course of 1991 Esposito lobbied to have the Tampa Coliseum plan resurrected but the plans never materialized. Esposito had a tentative agreement to play at the Florida Suncoast Dome, the stadium that the rival Karmanos bid would have used, instead but the deal fell through in January, 1992. He fell back on a two-year lease agreement with the Florida State Fairgrounds to play at their Expo Hall on April 23, 1992.

(Trivia: Ultimately the Lightning would play only one season at the small confines of the Expo Hall. They broke the lease and signed two-year lease at the Florida Suncoast Dome on July 30, 1993. The team would end up playing there for three seasons, finally moving to the new Tampa arena (built in Tampa's Channelside district, not near Tampa Stadium as originally intended) in 1996. The Suncoast Dome was renamed 'ThunderDome' during the Lightning's tenancy and is now known as Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team.)

Esposito also began hiring personnel. He would act as President and General Manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning; he hired his brother Tony to be his chief scout. They hired former Flames coach Terry Crisp as their head coach on April 23, 1992.

Meanwhile the Ottawa group, which named their team the Senators in honour of the former NHL team, hired Mel Bridgman as their GM on August 30, 1991. Former Rangers and Jets GM John Ferguson (Sr.) joined him as Director of Player Personnel on March 22, 1992. They hired Rick Bowness to coach on June 15, 1992.

The stage was set for the 1992 NHL Expansion Draft...

1991 NHL Expansion Draft

I used scare quotes in the title of my last post about the 1979 NHL Expansion Draft and I'm going to use them again throughout this post. Find 'expansion' in a dictionary and it is defined something to the effect of "becoming larger". Broadly speaking any new team in a professional sports league is an "expansion team" if it increases the league membership, but in the context of professional sports the term "expansion team" implies a team created ex novo ("from new").

Whether or not you or I think the WHA's clubs joining the NHL was more a 'merger' than an 'expansion' the facts are that at the end of the 1978-79 NHL season there were 17 member clubs and by the beginning of the 1979-80 season there were 21. The NHL held a draft to provide players to the four new clubs from the existing 17. The NHL went well out of its way to make it look like these clubs were started from scratch in 1979.

The WHA teams elected to join the NHL for a variety of reasons but chief among them was the instability of the WHA itself. The volume of franchise movement in the WHA was enormous, and the four teams that joined the NHL were far and away the healthiest financially speaking (and even then three of the four teams moved in the 1990s). In the late 1970s the NHL was facing financial difficulties of its own. In 1978 the Cleveland Barons and Minnesota North Stars merged. The Barons' owners, George and Gordon Gund, took over the North Stars and the two teams were combined in a messy compromise that kept one of the teams in existence for the then-foreseeable future. It was the first time the NHL had contracted since 1942.

The Gund brothers lost money in Minnesota too and after years of losses the matter came to a head in 1990. The NHL was faced with another problem that would also stretch the common definition of "expansion team".

By the summer of 1990 it was no secret that the Gunds had no desire to keep operating the North Stars in Minnesota and they were intent on moving the team to the San Francisco Bay Area. Ironically they were minority owners in the California Golden Seals and were the architects of their move from the Bay Area to Cleveland in 1976. They blamed the Seals' problems on having been located in Oakland instead of San Francisco, and the failure of the proposed Yerba Buena Center arena project in 1976 (which would have built a new arena in the heart of San Francisco) was the final nail in the Seals' coffin. (It would have been built on what is now the site of the Moscone Center.) In the time that had passed since the Seals left for Cleveland the city of San Jose, at the south end of the bay, had grown rapidly and in the 1980s became known as the centre of Silicon Valley. In 1988 San Jose voters approved a funding for a new pro hockey arena; they broke ground in the spring of 1990.

As I said the Gunds were intent on moving the North Stars to San Jose but the NHL governors wanted to keep a presence in Minnesota, well-known as the state with the largest grass-roots support for hockey. Rather than becoming embroiled in a lawsuit such as the one between the Oakland Raiders and National Football League in the early 1980s the NHL struck a deal with the Gunds which would grant them the right to an expansion franchise located in San Jose, and in turn the Gunds would sell the North Stars to former Whalers owner Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg.

In order to reach this compromise the NHL and the Baldwin ownership group made very large, very unusual concessions: the Gunds' new franchise in San Jose would be allowed to take over the contracts of many of the North Stars' players. They would take some of the staff with them as well, including GM Jack Ferreira, Assistant GM Dean Lombardi, and chief scouts Chuck Grillo and Les Jackson. The North Stars would also participate in the expansion draft alongside the San Jose team. Yes, that's right: an existing team would pick players in an expansion draft. Like I said this would stretch the common definition of "expansion team". Some people have called this agreement in effect the 'demerger' of the North Stars/Barons franchise.

Under the terms of the agreement the new San Jose team would take 30 players from the North Stars in a dispersal draft. The North Stars would be able to protect 14 skaters and two goalies with at least 50 games of NHL experience. San Jose would then pick 14 skaters and two goalies with less than 50 games of NHL experience. The two teams would then alternate picking players off the North Stars' reserve list until the San Jose team had picked a total of 30 players.

Unlike previous expansion teams from the '60s and '70s the San Jose club would not get first overall selection in the entry draft. The existing team with the worst record in '90-'91 would select first overall and San Jose would select second. In subsequent rounds the order would be reversed and San Jose would have the first pick in the round. Keep in mind this was the year that Eric Lindros, then the most highly touted prospect since Mario Lemieux, would be eligible for selection. It was assumed that whoever had first overall pick would use it to select Lindros. The NHL governors would allow the Gunds to have their team in California but they stopped short of gifting Lindros to them.

The agreement with the Gunds was announced on May 5, 1990. Ferreira, Lombardi, Grillo and Jackson were to stay on with the North Stars until the end of June however Baldwin hired Bobby Clarke to be the new GM on June 8. It was also around this time that Norm Green entered the picture.

Green, a shopping mall developer from Calgary, was an 18% stakeholder in the Flames. He sold his share of the Flames and bought 51% of the North Stars from Baldwin and Belzberg. Almost immediately after hiring Bobby Clarke Baldwin sold his remaining 24.5% share of the North Stars to Green.

Meanwhile the Gunds announced that the new team in the Bay Area would be known as the San Jose Sharks, and they would temporarily play home games at the Cow Palace in Daly City until the San Jose Arena was finished (trivia: the Cow Palace was home to the WHL's San Francisco Seals in the 1960s, the team that became the NHL's California [Golden] Seals. One of the conditions of the 1967 expansion was that the Bay Area franchise couldn't play at the Cow Palace. It was deemed "unfit for the NHL" by the Board of Governors. The NHL's Seals played all of their home games across the bay at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, except for five games played at the Cow Palace in the '68-'69 season).

By October of 1990 Green bought out Belzberg and had sole ownership of the team. Green had completely taken over within five months of the sale to Baldwin and Belzberg, and he wanted to change the deal with the Sharks. He felt it was too onerous on the North Stars (arguably true), and sought to revise the terms such that the North Stars would be allowed to keep more of their young players. The Sharks and North Stars would continue to renegotiate the terms of the dispersal throughout the 1990-91 season, well into May of 1991 in fact. It was only in mid-May that they finally came to an agreement as to how to split the players. Originally the dispersal and expansion draft were to be held on June 17 however it was moved ahead to May 30 in order to give the teams time to offer contracts to impending free agents (whose contracts would expire July 1). The draft began at 3 p.m. central time, by conference call.

The details of the final agreement between the North Stars and Sharks were never made public as far as I know. I've never found a source that describes the process in great detail, but I suspect that instead of a complicated draft procedure between the two clubs they simply negotiated and agreed on which players the Sharks would be allowed to take. In the end they took four members of the North Stars active roster, ten from the Kalamazoo Wings (the North Stars' IHL affiliate), and ten unsigned entry draft choices (mostly from the NCAA). The Sharks were also given the North Stars' second round pick in the 1991 Entry Draft (30th overall, used to select Sandis Ozolinsh) and their first round pick in the 1992 Entry Draft (10th overall, used to select Andrei Nazarov), reportedly in exchange for not taking Mike Craig in the "dispersal draft".

The first 24 San Jose Sharks were:

1991 Dispersal Draft
Player	1990-91 team
Shane Churla	Minnesota North Stars
Brian Hayward	Minnesota North Stars
Neil Wilkinson	Minnesota North Stars
Rob Zettler	Minnesota North Stars
Ed Courtenay	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Kevin Evans	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Link Gaetz	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Dan Keczmer	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Dean Kolstad	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Peter Lappin	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Pat MacLeod	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Mike McHugh	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Jarmo Myllys	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
J.F. Quentin	Kalamazoo Wings (IHL)
Scott Cashman	Boston University (Hockey East)
Murray Garbutt	Spokane Chiefs (WHL)
Rob Gaudreau	Providence College (Hockey East)
Arturs Irbe	Dinamo Riga (Soviet Championship)
Shaun Kane	Providence College (Hockey East)
Larry Olimb	University of Minnesota (WCHA)
Tom Pederson	University of Minnesota (WCHA)
Bryan Schoen	University of Denver (WCHA)
John Weisbrod	Harvard University (ECAC)
Doug Zmolek	University of Minnesota (WCHA)

The rules of the expansion draft were such that the North Stars and Sharks would pick 10 players each, a total of 20, one from each of the other clubs. The Sharks had first pick and had to pick a goalie. The North Stars would then have their choice of either a goalie or a defenceman with the second pick. The following six selections had to be used on defencemen and the final 12 picks were reserved for forwards.

Each of the 20 other clubs would lose only one player; once they had lost a player the North Stars and Sharks were not able to pick another from that team. The other 20 clubs were allowed to protect 16 skaters and a pair of goaltenders. All first- and second-year pros were exempt from selection and did not have to be protected. They were also forced to expose at least one goaltender with at least 60 minutes of NHL experience, one defenceman with at least 40 games played in the NHL in the 1990-91 season or 70 games over the course of the '89-'90 and '90-'91 seasons combined, and one forward with at least 40 NHL games in 1990-91 or 70 games over the preceding two seasons. As a result of these minimum experience rules a few players were pressed into action by their teams just so they could be exposed at the expense of protecting others; for example, Damian Rhodes of the Toronto Maple Leafs. At the time the only other goalies the Leafs had with NHL experience were Peter Ing and Jeff Reese, so Rhodes saw action in a single game (a 3-1 win over the Red Wings) so that the Maple Leafs could leave him exposed in the expansion draft. Rhodes wouldn't play in the NHL again until the '93-'94 season.

Rather than give the Sharks and North Stars the other clubs' protected lists, as was customary in the expansion drafts of the '70s, they were instead presented with a list of players available for selection. This list also included players who were on the teams' (restricted) free agent, voluntarily retired and inactive lists. Why the voluntarily retired and inactive players were included I do not know; it became something of a joke that the Sharks could stock their roster with all-time greats like Jean Beliveau, Bobby Clarke and Denis Potvin. Whatever the true explanation is I have listed the retired and inactive players separately, as none of them were actually chosen. The North Stars and Sharks were permitted to claim only one "free agent" player in the course of the draft.

Available Players

Boston Bruins	Buffalo Sabres	Calgary Flames	Chicago Blackhawks	Detroit Red Wings
Andy Brickley	Brian Curran	Rich Chernomaz	Bruce Cassidy	John Chabot
John Carter	Dale DeGray	Kerry Clark	Martin Desjardins	Alain Chevrier
Lou Crawford	François Guay	Paul Fenton	Paul Gillis	Bengt-Åke Gustafsson#
Peter Douris	Jeff Hamilton#	Steve Guenette	Michel Goulet	Marc Habscheid
Norm Foster	Steve Ludzik	Kevan Guy	Jim Johannson	Glen Hanlon
Nevin Markwart	Mikko Makela	Tim Hunter	Rick Lanz	Randy Hansch
John Mokosak	Don McSween	Rick Lessard	Bob McGill	Brad Marsh
Allen Pedersen	Gates Orlando#	Brian MacLellan	Greg Millen	Chris MacRae
Michael Thelven	Greg Paslawski	Scott McCrady	Brian Noonan	Dean Morton
Jim Wiemer	Dirk Rueter#	Sergei Pryakhin	Darren Pang
	Steve Smith	Richard Zemlak	Jim Playfair
	Hannu Virta#		Warren Rychel
	Steve Weeks		Mike Stapleton
	Jay Wells		Dan Vincelette
			Bill Watson#
			Sean Williams
Edmonton Oilers	Hartford Whalers	Los Angeles Kings	Montreal Canadiens	New Jersey Devils
Mario Barbe	Mikael Andersson	Scott Bjugstad	Frederic Chabot	Craig Billington
Dan Currie	Dave Babych	Mal Davis#	J. J. Daigneault	Doug Brown
John English	Marc Bergevin	Mario Gosselin	Donald Dufresne	Pat Conacher
Greg Hawgood	Brian Chapman	Bob Halkidis	Brent Gilchrist	Jamie Huscroft
Charlie Huddy	Daryl Reaugh	Rick Hayward	Sylvain Lefebvre	Marc Laniel
Tomas Jonsson	John Stevens	Tom Laidlaw	Jayson More	Jeff Madill
Fabian Joseph#	Emanuel Viveiros	John Miner#	Mats Naslund#	David Marcinyshyn
Marc Laforge	Terry Yake	Petr Prajsler	Jim Nesich	Rollie Melanson
Mark Lamb		Ilkka Sinisalo	Ryan Walter	Kent Nilsson#
John Leblanc#		Jim Thomson	Dan Woodley	Lee Norwood
Tommy Lehman#		John Tonelli		Janne Ojanen
Ken Linseman		Tim Watters		Walt Poddubny
Norm Maciver				Jeff Sharples
Max Middendorf				Claude Vilgrain
Selmar Odelein#
Pokey Reddick
Reijo Ruotsalainen#
Shaun Van Allen
Mike Ware
New York Islanders	New York Rangers	Philadelphia Flyers	Pittsburgh Penguins	Quebec Nordiques
Bill Berg	Paul Broten	Don Biggs#	Jock Callander	Mario Brunetta#
Brad Dalgarno	Bob Froese	Mike Bullard#	Jay Caulfield	Gerald Bzdel
Rob Dimaio	Lee Giffin#	Rod Dallman	Jeff Daniels	Mario Doyon
Jeff Finley	Stephane Guerard	Brian Dobbin	Gilbert Delorme	Scott Gordon
Rick Green	Mark Hardy	David Fenyves	Gord Dineen	Alan Haworth#
Paul Gagne#	Anders Hedberg#	Mark Freer	Randy Gilhen	Miloslav Horava
Jeff Hackett	Jody Hull	Mark Howe	Randy Hillier	Jeff Jackson
Brad Lauer	Kelly Kisio	Willie Huber#	Jiri Hrdina	Guy Lafleur
Derek Laxdal	Mark Laforest	Chris Jensen	Kim Issel	Brent Severyn
George Maneluk	Guy Larose	Tim Kerr	Mark Kachowski	Trevor Stienberg
Hubie McDonough	Joe Paterson	Dale Kushner	Peter Lee#
Chris Pryor	Lindy Ruff	Normand Lacombe	Dave Michayluk
Mick Vukota	Sam St-Laurent	Pete Peeters	Glenn Mulvenna
		Shaun Sabol	Barry Pederson
		Glen Seabrooke	Bruce Racine
			Bryan Trottier
			Wendell Young
St. Louis Blues	Toronto Maple Leafs	Vancouver Canucks	Washington Capitals	Winnipeg Jets
David Bruce	Normand Aubin#	Peter Bakovic	Robin Bawa#	Randy Carlyle
Yves Heroux	Aaron Broten	Brian Blad	Tim Bergland	Tom Draper
Dominic Lavoie	Lucien DeBlois	Jack Capuano	Craig Duncanson	Dallas Eakins
Darrell May	Jerry Dupont#	Craig Coxe	Chris Felix	Bryan Erickson
Alain Raymond	Mike Foligno	Ian Kidd	Mark Ferner	Todd Flichel
Harold Snepsts	Todd Hawkins	Bob Mason	Brent Hughes	Bob Joyce
Tom Tilley	Kent Hulst	Andrew McBain	John Kordic	Mark Kumpel
Steve Tuttle	Greg Johnston	Robert Nordmark	Mike Liut	Tyler Larter
Alain Vigneault#	Kevin Maguire	Risto Siltanen#	Rob Murray	Moe Mantha
Ron Wilson	Mike Millar	Stan Smyl	Mike Richard#	Chris Norton
	Rob Ramage	Carl Valimont	Steve Seftel	Roger Ohman#
	Dave Reid	Behn Wilson#	Neil Sheehy	Kent Paynter
	Damian Rhodes		Dave Tippett	Rudy Poeschek
	Mike Stevens		Alfie Turcotte	Scott Schneider
	Gilles Thibaudeau		Simon Wheeldon	Phil Sykes
				Jim Vesey

Note:
# denotes free agent

Voluntarily Retired and Inactive Players Available

Boston Bruins	Buffalo Sabres	Calgary Flames	Chicago Blackhawks	Detroit Red Wings
Gord Kluzak	Lee Fogolin†	Brian Engblom†	Dave Feamster	Murray Eaves†
Willi Plett	Jan Ludvig	Jim Peplinski†	Cliff Koroll	Bernie Federko
Frank Simonetti				Dave Lewis
Louis Sleigher				Mike O'Connell
Edmonton Oilers	Hartford Whalers	Los Angeles Kings	Montreal Canadiens	New Jersey Devils
Glen Cochrane	Andre Lacroix		Bruce Baker	Michel Bolduc
Dave Hunter	Larry Pleau		Jean Beliveau	Murray Brumwell
Craig Redmond			Yvan Cournoyer	Mark Gordon†
			Ken Dryden	Bob Lorimer
			John Ferguson	Bob Sauve
			Bob Gainey
			Jean Hamel
			Pierre Mondou
			Mario Tremblay
New York Islanders	New York Rangers	Philadelphia Flyers	Pittsburgh Penguins	Quebec Nordiques
Mark Hamway	Dave Archibald	Bill Barber	Bob Gladney	Alain Côté
Kevin Herom	Pierre Larouche	Bobby Clarke
Jim Koudys	Andre Villeneuve
Garry Lacey
Kurt Lackton
Don Maloney
Stefan Persson
Denis Potvin
St. Louis Blues	Toronto Maple Leafs	Vancouver Canucks	Washington Capitals	Winnipeg Jets
Eddy Beers	Bill Kitchen	Marc Crawford	Terry Murray	Bob Brooke†
Ed Kea†	Dan Maloney	Randy Gregg†		Daryl Stanley
Paul MacLean	Brad Smith†	Larry Melnyk
Scott Paluch†	Greg Terrion	Paul Reinhart
Brian Suter		Darcy Rota
		Ian Tennant

Note:
† denotes inactive. All other players were voluntarily retired.

Expansion Draft

Ovr.	Player	From	By
1	Jeff Hackett	New York Islanders	San Jose Sharks
2	Rob Ramage	Toronto Maple Leafs	Minnesota North Stars
3	Jayson More	Montreal Canadiens	San Jose Sharks
4	Dave Babych	Toronto Maple Leafs	Minnesota North Stars
5	Rick Lessard	Calgary Flames	San Jose Sharks
6	Allen Pedersen	Boston Bruins	Minnesota North Stars
7	Bob McGill	Chicago Blackhawks	San Jose Sharks
8	Charlie Huddy	Edmonton Oilers	Minnesota North Stars
9	Tim Kerr	Philadelphia Flyers	San Jose Sharks
10	Kelly Kisio	New York Rangers	Minnesota North Stars
11	Jeff Madill	New Jersey Devils	San Jose Sharks
12	Randy Gilhen	Pittsburgh Penguins	Minnesota North Stars
13	David Bruce	St. Louis Blues	San Jose Sharks
14	Rob Murray	Washington Capitals	Minnesota North Stars
15	Greg Paslawski	Buffalo Sabres	San Jose Sharks
16	Tyler Larter	Winnipeg Jets	Minnesota North Stars
17	Bengt-Åke Gustafsson	Detroit Red Wings	San Jose Sharks
18	Jim Thomson	Los Angeles Kings	Minnesota North Stars
19	Craig Coxe	Vancouver Canucks	San Jose Sharks
20	Guy Lafleur	Quebec Nordiques	Minnesota North Stars

As you can see the North Stars elected to take a defenceman with their first pick, second overall, choosing Maple Leafs' captain Rob Ramage. Ramage, 32, was among five veteran players over the age of 30 selected by the North Stars. The others were: Dave Babych (30), Charlie Huddy (31; he turned 32 three days after the draft), Kelly Kisio (31) and Guy Lafleur (39). It was clear that the Sharks were trying to build a younger team. By contrast they chose only two players older than 30, Tim Kerr (31) and Bengt Gustafsson (33), and the average age of the Sharks' selections was 26.7 years (compared to the North Stars' 28.8).

The youngest players chosen were Jayson More and Jeff Hackett, both 22 years old at the time (although Hackett's birthday is June 1, so he turned 23 only a couple days after the draft).

Conversely the North Stars picked 39-year-old Guy Lafleur with the final pick of the draft. Why would the North Stars waste a pick on a player who had already made his intentions to retire at the end of the 1990-91 season clear? As Bobby Clarke put it, "there was no one left". He didn't want to pick Lafleur at all.

Lafleur was chosen as a last resort due to a quirky culmination of the draft rules. Because each of the other 20 teams could only lose one player and all the other teams except the Nordiques had lost a player the 20th and final pick had to be a player from the Nordiques. The 9th through 20th picks had to be forwards, so the 20th pick had to be a Nordiques forward. Clarke wasn't interested in any of the Nordiques forwards and didn't want to pick up an unnecessary contract so he wanted to make a throwaway pick on a player he wouldn't have to pay. He wanted to take Alan Haworth.

Haworth hadn't played for the Nordiques in a couple years and was plying his trade in Switzerland instead. He was considered a 'defected' player and a restricted free agent and the Nordiques continued to hold his NHL rights. But, as I said before, there was a rule that only one player off the free agent list could be chosen in the draft, and with the 17th overall pick the Sharks chose Bengt Gustafsson. Gustafsson left the Capitals after the 1988-89 season and was playing in Sweden. Like Haworth he was a 'defected' player and a restricted free agent; the Red Wings acquired his rights in the 1990 Waiver Draft.

Clarke tried to claim Haworth but the selection was refused, and he was told he had to make another. Reluctantly he chose Le démon blond instead. Lafleur hadn't yet filed his voluntary retirement papers with the NHL offices so he was still eligible for selection. Clarke reportedly apologized over the conference call to Nordiques general manager Pierre Pagé (who coincidentally had been the North Stars' head coach prior to the deal to sell the team to Baldwin and Belzberg).

To allow Lafleur to retire in a more dignified manner, as a Quebec Nordique as he intended rather than as a North Star by circumstance, Clarke and Pagé made a deal the very next day (May 31): Lafleur was traded by the North Stars back to the Nordiques for Alan Haworth.

It's remarkable how quickly most of the players chosen in this draft were traded away, and how little use the draft was for either team in retrospect. Lafleur was one of several players who were traded away almost immediately. In fact immediately following the conclusion of the draft the Sharks announced their first ever trade: Tim Kerr, the first forward chosen, was traded to the Rangers for Brian Mullen and future considerations. Jack Ferreira candidly admitted that the deal was prearranged and the Sharks never had any intention of keeping Kerr (he would only play parts of the following two seasons before retiring).

On May 31, the same day they traded Lafleur back to the Nordiques, the North Stars traded Rob Murray to the Jets along with future considerations for the Jets' 7th round pick in the 1991 Entry Draft (Geoff Finch) and future considerations in return. Days later (June 3) they made their first trade with the Sharks, sending Kelly Kisio to San Jose in return for Shane Churla, one of their players taken in the player dispersal.

On June 22 the North Stars made two trades at the Entry Draft. In a three-way deal Dave Babych was traded to the Canucks, the North Stars received Craig Ludwig from the Islanders and the Islanders received Tom Kurvers from the Canucks. Randy Gilhen, Charlie Huddy and Jim Thomson were traded to the Kings along with the Rangers' 4th round pick (previously acquired) for Todd Elik. The Kings used the pick to select Alexei Zhitnik.

Less than a month after the expansion draft the North Stars had already traded seven of their ten selections away. The remaining three were gone within a year: Tyler Larter was traded to the Jets for Tony Joseph on October 15, 1991, Allen Pedersen was traded to the Whalers for a 6th round pick in the 1993 Entry Draft (Rick Mrozik) on June 15, 1992 and Rob Ramage was lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1992 Expansion Draft on June 18.

The Sharks didn't fare much better as far as their selections went. Neither the aforementioned Gustafsson nor former New Jersey Devil Jeff Madill ever played in the NHL again. Greg Paslawski was traded to the Nordiques on May 31, 1991 (the day after the expansion draft, remember) for Tony Hrkac. Craig Coxe played two games for the Sharks in 1991-92 and never played another game in the NHL afterward. Bob McGill played 62 games for the Sharks in their inaugural season and was traded to the Red Wings with the Canucks' 8th round pick in the 1992 Entry Draft (C.J. Denomme) for Johan Garpenlov on trade deadline day, March 10, 1992. Rick Lessard played eight games for the Sharks, and was traded to the Canucks for Robin Bawa on December 15, 1992.

Jeff Hackett was traded to the Blackhawks on July 13, 1993 for a third round pick in the 1994 Entry Draft (Alexei Yegorov) and future considerations. In two seasons with the Sharks he played in 78 games, had a miserable 13-57-2 record, with a 4.51 GAA and .875 save percentage. As bad as his stats were they weren't bad compared to his teammates. Jarmo Myllys played in 27 games in the Sharks' first season, had a 3-18-1 record, 5.02 GAA and .867 save percentage, while Brian Hayward played in 25 games, had the same 3-18-1 record as Myllys, a 5.39 GAA and .849 save percentage. Arturs Irbe had a 9-32-3 record in 49 games over the two seasons, a 4.19 GAA and .882 save percentage (and a shutout). Wade Flaherty saw limited action over the first two seasons: four games played, all of them losses, a 4.54 GAA and .892 save percentage.

After the Sharks' first two seasons the only players chosen in the expansion draft left were David Bruce and Jayson More. Bruce played in 79 games over the Sharks' first three seasons, scoring 24 goals and 19 assists (22 goals in the inaugural season, second most on the team behind Pat Falloon's 25). After the 1993-94 season he spent the rest of his career playing for the IHL's Kansas City Blades, the Sharks' top farm team.

Jayson More was the last of the players taken in the draft to stay with the team that chose him. He played for the Sharks for their first five seasons, 287 games in all. He was traded to the Rangers with Brian Swanson and a conditional draft pick for Marty McSorley on August 20, 1996.

In retrospect the North Stars apparently had nothing to fear from the player dispersal to the Sharks. Their roster and prospect pool weren't decimated as Norm Green, Bobby Clarke and reporters thought they might be. The most notable player taken from the North Stars was goalie Arturs Irbe, who had a long career in the NHL and led the Sharks to their first playoff victories in 1994 and 1995, but Irbe might never have played for the North Stars anyway. One can only wonder what could have happened if the terms of the deal with the Gunds weren't renegotiated. The North Stars weren't any worse than they were before, but they weren't any better. They finished the 1991-92 regular season with two more points than they had had in 1990-91. They made the playoffs once again but didn't go on another Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Sharks were pitiful on the ice, finishing their first season with a meagre 17-58-5 record and their second with an even more pitiful 11-71-2, one of the NHL's all-time greatest marks of regular season futility. Despite the lack of on-ice success the Gunds couldn't have been happier with the team's off-ice fortunes. Sharks merchandise was the most popular in the league and the Sharks were one of the top pro sports brands in North America at the time.

Financially speaking the North Stars carried on under Norm Green as they had under Gordon and George Gund. Attendance improved to over 13,000 per game but that was still one of the lowest figures in the league. On March 10, 1993 Green announced that the North Stars were moving to Dallas, effective the end of the 1992-93 season. The NHL wouldn't return to the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota until 2000 when the expansion Minnesota Wild began play.