Quoting: TrueCanuck
This is one spot where stats don't tell the whole story. Through the second half of last season Holtby was a beast. He struggled to start this season which is expected when coming to a new team, but his second half says that he wasn't the worst goalie outside of Philly.
Also, who else is Seattle going to take? Vancouver is set up pretty well with the expansion draft so there isn't much to choose from. A veteran goalie like him with a cup to his name, and only 1 year left on his deal is actually a pretty good piece. Could be a good bet to a younger goalie they bring in and flip him at the deadline if they wanted to.
Canucks likely protect 7-3-1 in the way of:
Pettersson
Miller
Horvat
Boeser
Pearson
Motte
(Any forward of Roussel, Lind, of Gadjovich)
Myers
Schmidt
Juolevi
Demko
Leaving Seattle with: (two of Roussel, Lind, or Gadovich, Highmore, MacEwen, Bowey, or Holtby.
So there's nothing better than to pick Holtby from that list.
I 100% agree with you that VAN is set up very nicely for expansion. In my opinion, we're looking at this differently. You're looking at it from VAN's point of view. I believe I'm looking at it from Seattle's point of view. The goalie options SEA has that IMO are all better are from
MIN (Talbot/Kappo), but Dumba is the clear choice there if available.
WAS, Samsynov/Vanecek. Both RFAs that are playing well. Maybe Dillon gets selected?
COL - Francouz, but Graves is likely to be take. (At this point, note how many Dmen can be selected too...they don't need 11 Dmen. One of these goalies will/should get selected.)
DAL - Khudobin - not too many other options.
MTL - Jake Allen - not too many other options
BUT that also leaves out the even better idea that they can grab an asset from VAN for free ANYTHING without a cap hit, but sign Bernier/Raanta/Dreidger/ Halak/Hutton/Ullmark/Reimer/Mrazek/Rittich/etc...
I think seattle takes a forward prospect form VAN...whatever's left over from Lind/Gadjobich. AGAIN, VAN is set up really good here. I just don't see Seattle taking on that much cap for a bad goalie that only has 1 year left. It's poor asset management. If VAN wants to send a 2nd round pick to shed $4M+...that's a different story.