The inevitability of a National Hockey League expansion draft next summer is going to force many teams around the league to get creative in how they put together their roster for the 2016-17 season. It may be a little early to talk about next season, but let’s be honest, there isn’t much left to be said about the current version of the Montreal Canadiens.

The expansion draft hasn’t been officially announced yet, but the league has gone far enough down the expansion path that they have sorted out many of the rules for the upcoming growth of the league. Existing teams will be allowed to protect one goaltender, three defenders and seven forwards (or eight skaters of any make-up and one goalie)  while the rest of their players can be plucked away with no return.

This alone makes for some interesting fodder as I believe the Canadiens will protect Carey Price, P.K. Subban, Nathan Beaulieu, Jeff Petry, Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Plekanec and Lars Eller, but who will be the final two forwards that are kept? Any first or second year professionals next season are exempt, meaning the likes of Michael McCarron, Nikita Scherbak, Zach Fucale and Noah Juulsen don’t need to be protected, but the Canadiens will be forced to make a judgement call on young forwards Daniel Carr, Sven Andrighetto, Jacob de la Rose and Charles Hudon among others.

Seems fairly simple to come up with the 11 players that will be protected by the Canadiens, and though no one wants to see Greg Pateryn and Andrighetto or Hudon leave for nothing in return, the Habs will have tough decisions to make thanks to a quirk in the expansion draft rules.

With this being the first expansion draft held in the salary cap era, the league made a unique provision that states each NHL team must make 25% of their 2016-17 NHL player payroll left unprotected. With the salary cap expected to stay about the same as the current $71.4 million or possibly move up to as much as $72.5 million next season, the Canadiens will have to leave $18 million worth of talent unprotected next summer.

Looking ahead to next summer, there is one obvious player with a big contract to leave unprotected and that would be defenseman Andrei Markov, who will be a pending unrestricted free agent with a $5.75 million cap hit.  Two other players who could help the Habs easily make it to the threshold are David Desharnais, who will be a UFA as well, and Alexei Emelin who will still have one year left at a cap hit of $4.1 million.

The problem with that is, the Canadiens would have to keep Desharnais and Emelin on the roster until the end of next season, and almost every Habs fan is hoping to see them moved either by trade or buyout this summer to free up cap space to bring in scoring help on the top two lines.

If the Habs are fortunate enough to free themselves of Desharnais and Emelin’s salary, it will free up lots of cap space this summer. Let’s say they hit a home run and add a top six forward like Kyle Okposo during the annual free agent frenzy on July 1. They would obviously protect their new top six winger along with the aforementioned Plekanec, Pacioretty, Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Eller, and for argument’s sake let’s say Carr.

Their unprotected forwards in this case are Torrey Mitchell, Paul Byron, Bryan Flynn, De la Rose, and Matteau, who combine to make $4.85 million. Add in the amount of petty cash that will be made by the rest of the forwards who are currently RFA’s – such as Lucas Lessio and Sven Andrighetto who will likely make less than a million each next season, as well as Hudon’s paltry salary (if he even plays in the NHL) – and the forwards exposed next summer will total about $6.5 million.

This means the defence and goaltenders left exposed would have to total $11.5 million to reach the floor of available salaries. Markov’s $5.75 takes a chunk out of that but backup goaltender Mike Condon is due to earn just $575,000, while depth defenseman Greg Pateryn will make $800,000. Throw in about a million dollars for Mark Barberio‘s next contract and another $1.5 million to be generous to the rest of the field that will fill out the depth ranks for the Habs blue line next season and the Montreal Canadiens have $15.55 million of 2016-17 left available for the Las Vegas franchise.

This leaves the Habs well short of the $18 million that needs to be left available, meaning the easy thing to do for the team is keep one of Desharnais or Emelin on the roster next season. If Marc Bergevin is able to find takers for both Desharnais and Emelin this summer, he’s going to have to get creative in advance of the expansion draft, or else he will be forced to leave Plekanec, Eller or Petry exposed just to meet the 25% rule.

There are a few ways for the Canadiens general manager to get creative and you may see the team overpay a player or two on a one year deal this summer with an eye on keeping them exposed next summer. It appears the team is only going to be about $2.5 million short, but that’s with a full roster.

Instead of signing Barberio and Andrighetto to million dollar contracts, could we see them both get one year deals at $2.5 million? Could the team overpay a depth defender on the UFA market to a one year deal this summer, such as Christian Ehrhoff or David Schlemko?

These options would show some foresight by the Habs brass, but begs the question, what is the purpose in getting rid of a bad contract, if it is going to force you to go out and get another one? There is no way an expansion team would be willing to take on the contract of Desharnais or Emelin, but the Habs may need to keep one of them to reach the $18 million per team.

Bergevin has been able to shred salary in the past, finding teams to take on Brandon Prust, Travis Moen, Josh Gorges and Rene Bourque’s contracts when their salary outweighed their performance. We all want to see him continue that trend with Desharnais and Emelin this summer, but it would take some interesting roster maneuvering to make salaries work with the impending expansion draft.

Dare I say, with one year left on his contract, it makes the most sense for the Canadiens to keep Desharnais for another season, just so they can leave his salary exposed to meet the requirements of next summer’s draft, and try to move the final two years of Emelin’s contract as soon as possible.