so who goes in the expansion draft?

Tampa at the Cirelli offer, Howden=Meh, Andersson=Little to no value Jones+Carolina's 1st sorry that doesn't cut it this doesn't help Tampa one iota Tampa isn't in position to deal their #2C for lesser pieces. Bette off just offer sheeting Cirelli and making a bad trade.

We would protect:
Panarin
Zibanejad
Kreider
Cirelli
Chytil
Buchnevich
Gauthier
Trouba
DeAngelo
Lindgren or Dermott
Georgiev

Seattle probably takes Lindgren/Dermott or Lemieux. Not a huge loss with our depth of LHD in the system.

Thanks for the 3rd

I think we talked about this when I posted my Boston team. He’s got good AHL numbers, and I thought I saw something about him ruffling some feathers in their system with some comments he made about not getting a chance. We could use some depth/middle six wings and it seems like a low enough cost to take the chance. We got a 3rd from Boston for Holden a couple years ago so just returning the favor...

Sure, but NYR could also get him for free (free agency) if wanted. Cehlarik already said he has offers from Europe/KHL so I think he signs there. And Bruins shouldn't qualify him. As a Cehlarik fan, I would like him to get a chance somewhere else but looks like he'll just head overseas for now. Hopefully he returns one day.

Why wouldn't NYR just OS Cirelli instead and save assets?

Who knows how many teams will OS Cirelli? A trade assures Cirelli of signing with your team, as well as preventing TBL from trading Cirelli's RFA rights to a team with cap room to sign him.

Offer sheet depends on Cirelli actually agreeing to sign it, which he might not want to do. Also costs us 3 draft picks next year, which isn’t the end of the world, but in my proposal we actually unload two guys that I think the organization should want to move. Howden sucks but the coaching staff loves him and Lias might actually have a future as a bottom 6 forward if he can get his head and ass wired back together properly but right now he’s the black sheep of the organization. Jones is emerging as a nice 2nd or 3rd pairing LHD (some call him the left handed Adam Fox which I am the first to be very cautious of buying that kind of hype) but it’s a position of strength in the organization. Also if we make a trade vs an offer sheet, we could possibly have more leverage in negotiation if the organization prefers trying to bridge Cirelli vs going long term. Obviously he would never sign a bridge style offer sheet, but once we own his rights, we have more leverage.
Tampa might prefer to take back known assets (two former first round picks and an emerging prospect) rather than 3 draft picks for Cirelli - given their cap crunch they obviously don’t want to lose the guy but might decide it’s the best outcome in a bad situation.