1992 NHL expansion draft

Lore & Background

The draft followed a period of NHL stability after the relocation of the Colorado Rockies in 1983–84. In the late 1980s, NHL owners planned to expand from 21 teams to 30 by the end of the 1990s. After awarding a franchise to San Jose, the league chose two more locations from eleven bidders. Ottawa and Tampa were awarded franchises primarily because they were the only bidders who accepted all conditions placed by the NHL. The expansion fee was $50 million.

Rules required 21 of the 22 existing franchises to protect two goaltenders and fourteen position players; the San Jose Sharks were exempt. First- and second-year players were ineligible. Teams that had lost a defenseman in the 1991 expansion draft could not lose one in this draft, and teams that had lost a goaltender in 1991 were exempt from exposing goaltenders. This led to unusual moves, such as the Chicago Blackhawks putting Ray LeBlanc into his only NHL game to expose him instead of Ed Belfour, and the Washington Capitals re-signing 40-year-old Bernie Wolfe, who had last played in 1979, though the league held up that contract.

The draft itself was chaotic for Ottawa. The Senators prepared their draft list on an Apple laptop that was found to have a dead battery on draft day. They also did not open the final list of available players. During the draft, they made side deals with the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils. Later, they attempted to select players who were ineligible because their teams had already lost the maximum number of players or because the player was not on the final list. League president John Ziegler sent the team a note telling them to get their act together.

Reader's Guide

The 1992 NHL expansion draft is significant as the mechanism that launched two franchises that remain in the league, the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning. The draft highlighted the tension between existing teams trying to protect their rosters and expansion teams trying to build competitive squads. The rules, particularly the exemptions for teams that had lost players in the 1991 draft, created complex maneuvering, including the unusual case of Ray LeBlanc and the attempted signing of Bernie Wolfe. The draft also exposed the organizational disarray of the Senators, who suffered a dead laptop battery, failed to review the final player list, and made multiple erroneous selections. In contrast, the Lightning, under Phil Esposito, focused on acquiring NHL veterans to compete immediately, while the Senators chose younger players to build for the future. The side deals made during the draft, though prohibited, shaped the initial rosters of both teams. The draft's legacy includes the immediate trades of several selected players, such as Frederic Chabot, Tim Hunter, and Jeff Bloemberg by Tampa, and the complicated return of Mark Laforest to the Rangers by Ottawa.

Did You Know?

• The Ottawa Senators prepared their draft list on an Apple laptop that had a dead battery on draft day.
• The Chicago Blackhawks put Ray LeBlanc into his only NHL game so they could expose him instead of Ed Belfour.
• The Washington Capitals re-signed 40-year-old Bernie Wolfe, who had last played in 1979, to protect their goaltenders, but the league held up the contract.
• Ottawa attempted to select Todd Ewen from Montreal, but the Canadiens had already lost the maximum number of players.