The NHL is always looking at the possibility of expansion and becoming the first professional sports league in North America to possess 33 teams.
When the league expanded for the first time since 2000, it was a new process that hockey fans got to experience with the creation of the Vegas Golden Knights. It was an entirely new and something that we had never seen before with the introduction of protection lists.
Vegas and Seattle had teams created out of players picked from the other 30 teams that had been left available. The Jets were no except and lost two players in the process. Today, we are going to review which players were drafted from the Jets and how they turned out on their new teams.
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Chris Thorburn – Vegas Golden Knights (2017 Expansion Draft)
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Thorburn was selected by the Golden Knights as a part of a deal for the Jets’ 2017 first and third-round picks. Winnipeg also received a first round pick in return that the Golden Knights had acquired from the Blue Jackets.
The move was smart by both parties as the Jets didn’t lose a key player that was unprotected and Vegas added draft capital essentially for free as they let Thorburn, a pending free agent, walk following the expansion draft. After leaving the Golden Knights, he signed with the St. Louis Blues, where he played two more seasons and won the Stanley Cup in 2019.
The Sault Ste. Marie native had been a longtime staple of the Jets lineup at the time, even coming with the team from Atlanta. He recorded 24 goals and 32 assists for 56 points in 396 games across six seasons with the Jets.
Mason Appleton – Seattle Kraken (2021 Expansion Draft)
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You may be scratching your head at this one as Appleton is currently on the Jets team, slated in a key role for the team alongside captain Adam Lowry and Nino Niederreiter.
However, when the 2021 Expansion draft rolled around, Seattle scooped Appleton up and played him in their lineup for 49 games, where he recorded six goals and 11 assists for 17 points.
Appleton worked better in his role on the Jets and when the trade deadline came around, Winnipeg re-acquired the Wisconsin product in exchange for a fourth-round pick.
He continues to play a significant role for Winnipeg today as his line with Niederreiter and Lowry played with each other more regularly than any other line on the Jets with 682 minutes played together, according to Money Puck’s line analytics.
The trio had also played the best defence of any line in the NHL that had played together more than 225 minutes, allowing just 1.32 goals per 60 minutes and were the Jets highest-scoring line combination last season with 23 goals.
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