1992 NHL Expansion Draft

For more about the 1992 expansion click here.

The 1992 NHL Expansion Draft was held June 18, 1992 at 6:00 pm local time at one of the ballrooms at the Gouverneur Hotel in Montreal (two days before the Entry Draft, which was held at the Forum).

The Rules

The rules for this expansion draft were set well in advance. Given the teams were announced so early—December, 1990—it was already known that there would be an expansion draft in 1991 to stock the San Jose Sharks and another in 1992 to stock the Senators and Lightning. The rules for both were set at roughly speaking the same time in the spring of 1991.

The 1992 Expansion Draft would be similar to the 1991 draft with respect to teams having to expose goalies, defencemen and forwards with minimum levels of experience. At least one goalie with 60 minutes of NHL experience, at least one defenceman with 40 or more games played in 1991-92 or 70 over 1990-91 and 1991-92, and at least one forward with 40 or more games in '91-'92 or 70 in '90-'91 and '91-'92 had to be offered by each of the existing clubs. Protected lists would be only 14 skaters and a pair of goalies (two fewer skaters than in 1991), with first and second-year professionals exempt. The idea was that this would help to give the expansion clubs some half-decent players. The 1979 draft was not particularly helpful to any of the four former WHA clubs. Of the four only the Oilers had had much success: the Whalers had missed the playoffs five out of their first six years, the Jets were atrocious in their first couple years and as of the time of this expansion draft the Nordiques had missed the playoffs for five straight seasons and finished the preceding three in last place overall. The 1974 Expansion Draft was shockingly poor for the Capitals and Kansas City Scouts. In the Scouts franchise's first 10 seasons it had relocated to another city (twice; to Denver in 1976 and to New Jersey in 1982) more often than it had made the playoffs (only once, in 1978). The Capitals weren't much better, missing the playoffs for their first eight seasons.

The San Jose Sharks, being that they would have just finished their first season, were exempt from the proceedings entirely. The Minnesota North Stars, despite participating in the 1991 Expansion Draft alongside the Sharks, were not.

The rules of the 1992 Expansion Draft were also tied to the results of the 1991 Expansion Draft in that any team that lost a goaltender in 1991 (it turned out only one did, the Islanders) would not have to expose a goaltender, and any team that lost a defenceman in 1991 would not have to expose one in 1992. Similar to the 1991 draft the 1992 draft was split into goalies, defencemen and forwards rounds. The first four selections of the draft would be reserved exclusively for the selection of goalies, the following 14 exclusively for defencemen, and the final 24 for forwards. The Lightning and Senators would each pick two goalies, seven defencemen and 12 forwards for a total of 42 players between the two new clubs. Of their 21 selections each team could pick only one player who was or was about to become a free agent.

The order of selection was determined by a coin toss. The winner, "Team A", would get the choice of having the 1st and 4th goalie selections or the 2nd and 3rd. "Team B" would get the choice of 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 12th and 14th defencemen or could cede them to 'A' and have the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 11th and 13th picks. 'A' would choose between having the 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 20th, 22nd and 23rd forwards or 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 21st and 24th forwards. The Senators ended up being "Team A" and chose to keep the first picks of goalie and forward. The Lightning ceded the choice of 1st defenceman to the Senators as well.

The Available Players

The list of players available for selection was long but not particularly deep. The rules about providing players with minimum experience levels were designed to force the existing clubs to expose at least a few worthwhile players but those existing clubs worked very hard to skirt the rules as well as they could. Several free agent signings and trades were made in the days leading up to the draft, many of them designed to work around the rule about exposing a goalie with a minimum of one game played in the NHL.

For example the Jets had three goalies who saw significant playing time in 1991-92: Bob Essensa, Rick Tabaracci and Stéphane Beauregard. Mike O'Neill also played, but only 12 minutes and 27 seconds in a 7-4 loss to the Flames on December 19, 1991. The Jets could only protect two of them, and Mike O'Neill wouldn't count as a goalie with 'experience' because he didn't play a full 60 minutes. They stood a very real chance of losing one of Essensa, Tabaracci or Beauregard, whichever they didn't protect, and they didn't want to lose any of them.

Instead of losing one of them for nothing they acquired goalie Daniel Berthiaume from the Bruins for forward Doug Evans on June 10. They didn't really want to keep Berthiaume but he would count as their 'experienced' goalie and they could then trade one of Essensa, Tabaracci or Beauregard for an asset. Five days later they traded Beauregard to the Sabres for Christian Ruutu. The Sabres protected Beauregard and the Jets protected Ruutu, and on August 7 the Sabres traded Beauregard and a fourth round pick in the 1993 Entry Draft to the Blackhawks for (drumroll please) Dominik Hasek. Three days after that the Blackhawks traded Beauregard back to the Jets for (another drumroll please) Christian Ruutu! In effect the Jets stashed Beauregard with the Sabres, the Sabres stashed Ruutu with the Jets, and the Sabres got Hasek from the Blackhawks for Christian Ruutu and a fourth round draft pick (who ended up being Eric Dazé, by the way). Berthiaume went unclaimed in the expansion draft and the Jets released him over the summer. He signed with the Senators as a free agent in December of 1992.

That's just one example of many transactions that were made in efforts to keep certain players or entice the expansion clubs to take certain others. On June 13 the Devils acquired defenceman Brad Shaw from the Whalers for future considerations and left him exposed in the draft. They left several experienced defencemen available, including Tommy Albelin and Slava Fetisov, but by having Shaw they hedged their bets. If the expansion clubs took one of their other defencemen they could keep Shaw and if Shaw was chosen they could keep the defencemen they had in the first place. As you will see in the results they lost Shaw in the draft to the Senators.

The same thing occurred between the Detroit Red Wings and Quebec Nordiques. The Nordiques acquired Dennis Vial and Doug Crossman from the Wings for cash on June 15, and Crossman was selected from the Nordiques by the Lightning in the draft.

The Maple Leafs made another such trade with the Sharks on June 15. The Leafs had three goalies who played in the NHL in '91-'92: Grant Fuhr, Rick Wamsley and rookie Felix Potvin. They didn't have to protect Potvin, nor did they have to protect Damian Rhodes (who played in the AHL for the St. John's Maple Leafs). If you have read my post about the 1991 Expansion Draft you might recall that the Leafs put Rhodes in a game in the 1990-91 season in order to expose him in the '91 Expansion Draft and protect their other goalies with NHL experience (at the time, Peter Ing and Jeff Reese). As of the end of 1991-92 Rhodes could still be automatically protected by virtue of only being a second-year pro, but the Leafs had to expose somebody. So they cut a deal with the Sharks: they acquired Jarmo Myllys for future considerations, and exposed Myllys. That way they could keep Fuhr, Wamsley, Potvin and Rhodes.

Goalies were of particular importance, as they always are, and teams went to all sorts of lengths to hang on to the ones they had rather than lose them in the draft. The Capitals had three goalies play in the '91-'92 season too: Don Beaupre, Mike Liut and Jim Hrivnak. Ordinarily they might have just protected Beaupre and Hrivnak and expose Liut, who was 36 years old at the time and very well-paid. They had a problem though: Liut retired! The only other goalie they had with NHL experience was Olaf Kolzig, who was then only 22 years old and would normally have been automatically protected being that he had just finished his second year as a professional (he played two games with the Capitals at the very start of the 1989-1990 as a 19-year-old, but that didn't count as a 'pro' season; he was sent back to the Tri-City Americans of the WHL). They didn't want to lose Kolzig, Beaupre or Hrivnak, so Caps GM David Poile came up with a cunning, devious plan. He signed former Capitals goalie Bernie Wolfe to a contract on June 15.

"Bernie Wolfe?" you say. Bernie Wolfe played four seasons for the Capitals in the 1970s. By the time he signed a contract in 1992 he was 40 years old and hadn't played hockey in 13 years, but the NHL's rules didn't say when a goalie exposed in the expansion draft had to have played in the NHL, just they he had to have played at least one game.

The NHL wouldn't let that fly. President John Ziegler refused to allow the contract with Wolfe to be registered. It was clear in his eyes that the Capitals were deliberately trying to skirt the rules of the draft. Poile signed goalie Steve Weeks to a contract on the 16th instead; Weeks was 33 and had been a regular NHLer since 1981. (Weeks was not claimed in the draft and was traded to the Senators on August 13, 1992 for future considerations.)

Other teams didn't go to such lengths, instead electing to play a farmhand goalie for a single game in the 1991-92 season as the Leafs had done with Rhodes the year before. The Blackhawks didn't want to lose one of their three top goalies: Eddie Belfour, Jimmy Waite and Dominik Hasek. Hasek didn't have to be exposed—he had just finished his second pro year (in North America)—but they had to expose at least one goalie with one game of NHL experience. Enter Ray LeBlanc.

LeBlanc was a minor-league goalie who was never drafted and up until 1991-92 had spent almost his entire pro career in the IHL. He played in the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France and that's when his profile rose considerably. In Albertville he finished 4-0-1 with two shutouts in the round robin, and was named the top goalie in the tournament despite Team USA's loss to the Czechoslovak team in the bronze medal game. Not long after the tournament ended he was called up from the Blackhawks' IHL affiliate. Ray LeBlanc played his one and only NHL game on March 10, 1992. The Hawks beat the Sharks 5-1, and LeBlanc's career stats in the NHL are 21 saves on 22 shots and a 1.00 GAA. LeBlanc, having played a complete 60 minutes, was exposed in the expansion draft as the Hawks' 'experienced' goalie and as a result they were able to protect Belfour and Waite and didn't have to expose Hasek.

The Flames did the same thing. On April 16, 1992—the Flames' last game of the season— Scott Sharples played in his only NHL game, a 4-4 tie versus the Canucks (36 saves on 40 shots, a 3.69 GAA). The Flames exposed Sharples, protected Mike Vernon and Jeff Reese, and didn't have to expose Trevor Kidd.

Boston Bruins	Buffalo Sabres	Calgary Flames
Goaltenders
Matt DelGuidice	Clint Malarchuk	Scott Sharples
Mike Parson
Defencemen
none	Dale DeGray	none
	Randy Hillier
	Bill Houlder
	Grant Ledyard
	Brad Miller
	Mike Ramsey
	Dirk Rueter
	Hannu Virta
Forwards
Peter Douris	Gord Donnelly	Rich Chernomaz
Doug Evans	Jody Gage	Kerry Clark
Jeff Lazaro	François Guay	Bryan Deasley
Ted Miskolczi	Jeff Hamilton	Marc Habscheid
Shayne Stevenson	Darcy Loewen	Tim Hunter
Jim Vesey	Gates Orlando	Chris Lindberg
	Colin Patterson	Todd Strueby
	Joel Savage	Tim Sweeney
	Rick Vaive	Carey Wilson
Chicago Blackhawks	Detroit Red Wings	Edmonton Oilers
Goaltenders
Ray LeBlanc	Allan Bester	Norm Foster
Defencemen
none	Gord Kruppke	none
	Bob McGill
	Bob Wilkie
Forwards
Shawn Byram	Troy Crowder	Nick Beaulieu
Greg Gilbert	Kory Kocur	Dan Currie
Michel Goulet	Lonnie Loach	David Haas
Stu Grimson	Brian MacLellan	Fabian Joseph
Tony Horacek	Max Middendorf	Tomas Kapusta
Tony Hrkac	Ken Quinney	Marc Laforge
Brad Lauer		Mark Lamb
Mike Peluso		Tommy Lehmann
Dan Vincelette		David Maley
Bill Watson		Bill McDougall
Sean Williams		Anatoli Semenov
		Shaun Van Allen
		Mike Ware
Hartford Whalers	Los Angeles Kings	Minnesota North Stars
Goaltenders
Mario Gosselin	Darryl Gilmour	Steve Guenette
Peter Sidorkiewicz	Robb Stauber
Defencemen
none	John Miner	David Jensen
	John Van Kessel	Paul Jerrard
	Tim Watters	Roy Mitchell
		Dave Moylan
		Rob Ramage
		Ville Siren
Forwards
Blair Atcheynum	Scott Bjugstad	Todd Bergen
Paul Cyr	Sylvain Couturier	Neal Broten
Scott Daniels	Mal Davis	Stewart Gavin
Lane MacDonald	Kyosti Karjalainen	Alan Haworth
Mike McHugh	Jay Miller	Tim Lenardon
Daniel Shank	Dave Taylor	Basil McRae
Mike Tomlak	Jim Thomson	Mitch Messier
Terry Yake	Darryl Williams	Brian Propp
		Scott Robinson
		Warren Rychel
		George Servinis
		Derrick Smith
		Bobby Smith
Montreal Canadiens	New Jersey Devils	New York Islanders
Goaltenders
Frédéric Chabot	Doug Dadswell	none
Defencemen
none	Tommy Albelin	Dean Chynoweth
	Viacheslav Fetisov	Jeff Finley
	Brent Severyn	Tom Kurvers
	Jeff Sharples	Gary Nylund
	Brad Shaw	Joe Reekie
Forwards
Todd Ewen	Dave Barr	Bill Berg
John Ferguson Jr.	Laurie Boschman	Brad Dalgarno
Mats Naslund	Neil Brady	Rob DiMaio
Mario Roberge	Doug Brown	Dean Ewen
Sylvain Turgeon	Pat Conacher	Tom Fitzgerald
	Jon Morris	Paul Gagne
	Kent Nilsson	Rich Kromm
	Peter Stastny	Sean Lebrun
	Claude Vilgrain	Claude Loiselle
		Hubie McDonough
		Graeme Townshend
		Mick Vukota
New York Rangers	Philadelphia Flyers	Pittsburgh Penguins
Goaltenders
Mark LaForest	Bruce Hoffort	Bruce Racine
		Wendell Young
Defencemen
Jeff Bloemberg	Dave Fenyves	Gilbert Delorme
Peter Fiorentino	Corey Foster	Bryan Fogarty
John Mokosak	Willie Huber	Grant Jennings
Normand Rochefort	Moe Mantha	Peter Taglianetti
	Darren Rumble
Forwards
Rick Bennett	Mark Freer	Peter Lee
Don Biggs	Chris Jensen	Troy Mick
Jan Erixon	Brad Jones	Joe Mullen
Lee Giffin	Dale Kushner	Ken Priestlay
Randy Gilhen
Jody Hull
Tim Kerr
Dan Lacroix
John Ogrodnick
Mario Thyer
Quebec Nordiques	St. Louis Blues	Toronto Maple Leafs
Goaltenders
Scott Gordon	Darrell May	Jarmo Myllys
Defencemen
Doug Crossman	Curt Giles	none
Mario Doyon	Dominic Lavoie
Stéphane Guérard	Rob Robinson
Tony Twist	Bruce Shoebottom
	Tom Tilley
	Alain Vigneault
Forwards
Gino Cavallini	Kelly Chase	Brad Aitken
Kevin Kaminski	Ron Hoover	Normand Aubin
Steve Maltais	Darin Kimble	Brian Bradley
Everett Sanipass	Dave Lowry	Mike Bullard
Wayne Van Dorp	Dave Mackey	Mike Foligno
Mark Vermette	Kevin Miehm	Todd Hawkins
	Michel Mongeau	Greg Johnston
	Richard Pion	Kevin Maguire
	Rich Sutter	Kevin McClelland
	Steve Tuttle	Keith Osborne
Vancouver Canucks	Washinton Capitals	Winnipeg Jets
Goaltenders
Bob Mason	Steve Weeks	Daniel Berthiaume
		Mike O'Neill
Defencemen
Brian Blad	Shawn Anderson	Randy Carlyle
Ken Hammond	Bob Babcock	Dallas Eakins
Risto Siltanen	Shawn Chambers	Mario Marois
Behn Wilson	Chris Felix	Roger Ohman
	Rod Langway	Kent Paynter
	Ken Sabourin
Forwards
Robin Bawa	Tim Bergland	Danton Cole
Dave Capuano	John Byce	Mike Hartman
Paul Guay	Craig Duncanson	Bob Joyce
Jay Mazur	Jeff Greenlaw	John Leblanc
Rob Murphy	Mark Hunter	Rob Murray
Ryan Walter	John Purves	Rudy Poeschek
	Mike Richard
	Steve Seftel
	Tim Taylor
	Alfie Turcotte

The Draft

Ovr.	Player	Picked from	Picked by
Goaltenders
1	Peter Sidorkiewicz	Hartford Whalers	Ottawa Senators
2	Wendell Young	Pittsburgh Penguins	Tampa Bay Lightning
3	Frédéric Chabot	Montreal Canadiens	Tampa Bay Lightning
4	Mark LaForest	New York Rangers	Ottawa Senators
Defencemen
5	Brad Shaw	New Jersey Devils	Ottawa Senators
6	Joe Reekie	New York Islanders	Tampa Bay Lightning
7	Shawn Chambers	Washington Capitals	Tampa Bay Lightning
8	Darren Rumble	Philadelphia Flyers	Ottawa Senators
9	Peter Taglianetti	Pittsburgh Penguins	Tampa Bay Lightning
10	Dominic Lavoie	St. Louis Blues	Ottawa Senators
11	Brad Miller	Buffalo Sabres	Ottawa Senators
12	Bob McGill	Detroit Red Wings	Tampa Bay Lightning
13	Ken Hammond	Vancouver Canucks	Ottawa Senators
14	Jeff Bloemberg	New York Rangers	Tampa Bay Lightning
15	Doug Crossman	Quebec Nordiques	Tampa Bay Lightning
16	Kent Paynter	Winnipeg Jets	Ottawa Senators
17	Rob Ramage	Minnesota North Stars	Tampa Bay Lightning
18	John Van Kessel	Los Angeles Kings	Ottawa Senators
Forwards
19	Sylvain Turgeon	Montreal Canadiens	Ottawa Senators
20	Michel Mongeau	St. Louis Blues	Tampa Bay Lightning
21	Anatoli Semenov	Edmonton Oilers	Tampa Bay Lightning
22	Mike Peluso	Chicago Blackhawks	Ottawa Senators
23	Mike Hartman	Winnipeg Jets	Tampa Bay Lightning
24	Rob Murphy	Vancouver Canucks	Ottawa Senators
25	Mark Lamb	Edmonton Oilers	Ottawa Senators
26	Basil McRae	Minnesota North Stars	Tampa Bay Lightning
27	Laurie Boschman	New Jersey Devils	Ottawa Senators
28	Rob DiMaio	New York Islanders	Tampa Bay Lightning
29	Steve Maltais	Quebec Nordiques	Tampa Bay Lightning
30	Jim Thomson	Los Angeles Kings	Ottawa Senators
31	Dan Vincelette	Chicago Blackhawks	Tampa Bay Lightning
32	Lonnie Loach	Detroit Red Wings	Ottawa Senators
33	Mark Freer	Philadelphia Flyers	Ottawa Senators
34	Tim Bergland	Washington Capitals	Tampa Bay Lightning
35	Chris Lindberg	Calgary Flames	Ottawa Senators
36	Brian Bradley	Toronto Maple Leafs	Tampa Bay Lightning
37	Keith Osborne	Toronto Maple Leafs	Tampa Bay Lightning
38	Jeff Lazaro	Boston Bruins	Ottawa Senators
39	Shayne Stevenson	Boston Bruins	Tampa Bay Lightning
40	Darcy Loewen	Buffalo Sabres	Ottawa Senators
41	Blair Atcheynum	Hartford Whalers	Ottawa Senators
42	Tim Hunter	Calgary Flames	Tampa Bay Lightning

Poor Mel Bridgman. This day and this draft were the auspicious start of the expansion Ottawa Senators' absolutely miserable first few seasons. Bridgman was a former player who retired in 1989 and went back to school, earning a business degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. By all accounts he was a bright guy, but he did not have a good day on June 18, 1992.

It all started with the Senators staff having brought all of the research they had done for the expansion draft on a laptop computer. It just so happened that when they got to the table at the draft meeting the computer's batteries were dead. They had no backup, and nothing to plug into to charge it. All of their prep work was stuck on a useless laptop. They had to make do with paper and select from memory, which proved to be very difficult.

With the 33rd overall pick they tried to select Todd Ewen from the Canadiens. The Senators had already selected Sylvain Turgeon from the Canadiens and they thought that Ewen was still available and eligible. They neglected to cross Frédéric Chabot's name off their lists when the Lightning chose him with the 3rd overall pick. The Habs had already lost the maximum of two players. Bridgman was told that Ewen was ineligible for selection and he had to walk back to his staff's table and figure out who they could take.

After a few minutes he walked back up to the stage and sheepishly apologized. They took Mark Freer from the Flyers instead.

Seven picks later and it was the Senators' turn again. Bridgman walked up to the mic and announced they would select Todd Hawkins from the Maple Leafs… except that the Lightning had selected Brian Bradley and Keith Osborne with the 36th and 37th picks. Another apology proffered and back he went to the conference table to discuss what to do next. He returned to the mic and called out C.J. Young's name. Young's rights were held by the Flames and the Flames hadn't lost two players yet.

But Young wasn't eligible for selection! He had just finished his second year of professional hockey. His name was mistakenly printed on the Senators' list of eligible players. The Senators (eventually) chose Darcy Loewen from the Sabres.

By contrast Phil Esposito and his crew sailed through the expansion draft proceedings. Esposito had no illusions about the quality of the players available though. He was asked by a reporter if he believed he had chosen any potential superstars; apocryphal stories say he turned to the board with the Lightning's list of players on it, pointed and asked the reporter "Are you blind?"

It didn't take Esposito long to start wheeling-and-dealing. The very next day he pulled the trigger on four trades: he traded goalie Chabot back to the Canadiens for goalie Jean-Claude Bergeron, he traded Tim Hunter to the Nordiques for future considerations, he acquired Danton Cole from the Jets for future considerations and acquired Darin Kimble, Rob Robinson, Steve Tuttle and goalie Pat Jablonski from the Blues for future considerations (which ended up being a fourth round entry draft pick in '94, a fifth round pick in '95 and a sixth round pick in '96).

Mel Bridgman made trades of his own over the summer. On June 22 he traded Chris Lindberg back to the Flames for Mark Osiecki. On July 20 he acquired Brad Marsh from the Leafs for future considerations. He also acquired Jody Hull from the Rangers, Steve Weeks from the Capitals and Neil Brady from the Devils for future considerations on July 28, August 13 and September 3 respectively.

The 1992-93 Season

The '92 Expansion Draft gave the Lightning and Senators a start to their franchises and for the briefest of moments it looked like it might have been a decent start. The Lightning opened their season at the Expo Hall in Tampa on October 7 in a game against the Blackhawks. Chris Kontos, a veteran winger who had experience in the NHL with the Rangers, Penguins and Kings but had been playing for the Canadian national team at the time, scored four goals (still a franchise record) to lead the team to a 7-3 victory. The next night the Senators opened their inaugural season at the Ottawa Civic Centre against the Canadiens and beat them 5-3.

The Lightning's record stayed respectable for the first couple months of the season but the Senators became a laughingstock. They won that first game but went on a 21-game winless streak after that. Their second victory didn't come until November 25. The Lightning finished 22nd out of 24 teams with 53 points, five points behind the Whalers. The Senators finished dead last with a 10-70-4 record good for only 24 points. They were only three points shy of tying the modern-day record of futility set by the expansion Capitals in '74-'75, but the Senators had the benefit of playing an 84-game schedule whereas the Capitals only played 80. The Sharks also finished the season with 24 points but finished ahead of the Senators by virtue of having one more win. At least the Senators didn't finish with the record for most losses in a season; the '92-'93 Sharks still own that record with an alarmingly terrible 71.

The Senators' corporate parent, Terrace Investments, was slowly taken over by CEO Rod Bryden over the course of the team's first season. Bryden became CEO of the Senators in January, 1993 and on April 15 he fired Mel Bridgman. The team's COO, Randy Sexton, took over as GM. Bruce Firestone sold his shares in Terrace to Bryden in August of 1993 and walked away.

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...

1992 NHL Waiver Draft

The 1992 Waiver Draft was held on October 4. The rules were the same as they were in 1990, except that only one player could be lost by any given team (because this was an expansion year). The new expansion teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators, were allowed to participate in the first round of selections with the non-playoff clubs.

Player	Picked by	Picked from	Player dropped from protected list	Cash or claim?
Round 1
Adam Creighton	Tampa Bay Lightning	New York Islanders	???	cash
Norm Maciver	Ottawa Senators	Edmonton Oilers	???	cash
Yvon Corriveau	San Jose Sharks	Washington Capitals	???	cash
Chris Dahlquist	Calgary Flames	Minnesota North Stars	???	cash
Shawn Cronin	Philadelphia Flyers	Quebec Nordiques	???	cash
Round 2
Igor Larionov	San Jose Sharks	Vancouver Canucks	???	cash
Doug Evans	Philadelphia Flyers	Quebec Nordiques	???	cash
Dave Christian	Chicago Blackhawks	St. Louis Blues	???	cash

Adam Creighton was selected first by the Lightning in a pre-arranged deal with the Islanders. In exchange for the Islanders leaving Creighton unprotected the Lightning traded their fifth round pick in the 1994 Entry Draft to the Islanders (which the Isles used to select goalie Mark McArthur, who never appeared in an NHL game).

Norm Maciver would go on to be the first-year Senators' highest-scoring player.

Igor Larionov was the most high-profile pick this year, although at the time the reaction from the press was muted. Larionov had come over from the Soviet Union in 1989 (with permission mind you; he didn't defect) and played for the Canucks with Vladimir Krutov, one of his former linemates from CSKA Moscow. Krutov only played one year for the Canucks before being cut from the team. Apocryphal tales of Krutov being cut because he was overweight and out-of-shape aren't entirely untrue, but the underlying reason is that Krutov's contract was not registered properly with the league.

Soviet players like Krutov, Larionov, Sergei Makarov, Slava Fetisov, Alexei Kasatonov and Sergei Priakhin were given permission to leave the USSR and play hockey in the NHL by Sovintersport, a Soviet government agency that managed Soviet sports internationally. The contracts for the players were with Sovintersport, who would receive a percentage of the players' salaries as "transfer payments" from the NHL clubs, and they also insisted that the typical clauses in the Standard Player's Contract regarding assignment to a minor league team be rescinded. The Soviets did not want their best hockey players to play in the North American minor leagues; it would have been seen as tarnishing the image of Soviet sport. Striking out these clauses made the contracts ineligible for registration with the league because they were seen to be in violation of the league's by-laws and constitution, as well as the collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA. While Larionov, Makarov and others signed revised contracts Krutov refused. It is for this reason that—legally speaking—he was only allowed to play a year with the Canucks.

Larionov continued playing for the Canucks for the rest of his three-year contract (which paid him and Sovintersport $375,000 per year, the same as Krutov's contract). When his contract expired and he sought to sign another he still had to do so through the Russian sports agency, who would continue to draw a portion of his salary from him. Rather than allow this to go on he signed a smaller contract with Lugano Hockey Club of the Swiss league, thumbing his nose at the Russian government.

The Sharks, who finished last in the 1991-92 season (their first) were hoping to sign Larionov and Sergei Makarov to contracts in order to dramatically improve the team. Makarov's contract with the Flames also expired in 1992 and the Sharks made him an offer in July. Makarov was considered a Group III free agent, which meant at the time that the Flames were not entitled to any compensation should Makarov sign a contract with another team but they still had the right to match any other team's offer. The Flames elected to match the Sharks' offer and Makarov would remain a Flame for the foreseeable future. Despite this setback the Sharks continued to pursue Larionov and picked him from the Canucks in the waiver draft.

It took almost a year but after the 1992-93 season the Russian government relented and allowed Larionov to sign an NHL contract without any interference. Larionov signed on the dotted line on June 5, 1993.

Makarov had had enough of playing in Calgary and had a particularly acrimonious relationship with Flames coach Dave King. (Makarov never got along with any of the Flames coaches. In his first year in Calgary he told Terry Crisp: "[Viktor] Tikhonov? Bad guy, good coach. You? Good guy, bad coach.") At the end of the season, just days before the 1993 Expansion Draft, Makarov was traded to the Hartford Whalers. The Whalers intended on drafting Viktor Kozlov in the 1993 Entry Draft and hoped that Makarov would mentor him and Andrei Nikolishin, their first-round pick in 1992 who was still playing in Russia for Dynamo Moscow. Makarov was not keen on the idea: he wanted to play for the Sharks and with Larionov. The Sharks in turn made a deal with the Whalers: the Whalers would get the Sharks' #2 overall pick in exchange for the Whalers' #6 overall pick, their second and third round picks, and Sergei Makarov. With the #2 pick the Whalers selected Chris Pronger. With the #6 pick the Sharks selected Kozlov.

Larionov and Makarov were teammates again for the first time since they had left the Soviet Union in 1989. They would lead the Sharks to the single greatest turnaround season in NHL history (a gain of 58 points over their record in 1992-93) and their first playoff birth, where they famously upset the heavily favoured Detroit Red Wings in the first round.

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