NHL Expansion Draft: The Maple Leafs' Likeliest Casualty Is Akhtyamov

The NHL expansion draft Maple Leafs problem nobody is talking about

The next NHL expansion draft does not have a date, a set of rules, or even a confirmed team — and the Toronto Maple Leafs already have an obvious problem with it. If the league adds a 33rd franchise and runs the process the way it ran Vegas in 2017 and Seattle in 2021, the single most likely player Toronto loses for nothing is Artur Akhtyamov, the goaltender who was named MVP of the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs.

That is not a prediction. It is arithmetic applied to a template. But the template is well established, the front office knows it, and Toronto's goaltending depth chart got dramatically thinner this summer in ways that make the exposure worse rather than better.

Where the 33rd team actually stands

Start with the facts, because the speculation around this has already outrun them.

On June 23, 2026, following a Board of Governors meeting, commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the NHL had opened a six-month process to evaluate expansion to either Houston or Austin, Texas. The league named the Friedkin family, led by Dan Friedkin, as the prospective ownership group. The stated investment is $3.5 billion, a figure that covers both the expansion fee and the cost of building an NHL arena, since neither city currently has one that works. Bettman was explicit that the Board would vote only if the league and the Friedkins reached a joint conclusion during the evaluation window.

Six months from June 23 lands in late December 2026. That is when we should learn whether this is happening at all, which city won, and — eventually — when the team would actually play. Every expansion draft projection you see right now, including the mock exercises that have already been published, is built on a franchise that does not yet formally exist.

The rules nobody has written yet

The NHL has not published expansion draft rules for a 33rd team. What we have is precedent, and the precedent has been remarkably stable across two expansions.

Under the Vegas and Seattle framework, each existing club chose one of two protection schemes: seven forwards, three defencemen and one goaltender, or eight skaters and one goaltender. The expansion team was required to select exactly one player from every existing club. Players with only one or two seasons of professional experience were exempt entirely, and players with no-movement clauses had to be protected unless they agreed to waive.

Two features of that structure matter enormously to Toronto. First, the exemption for young pros protects the prospects a club would most hate to lose — under that template, Gavin McKenna and the newest arrivals in the system would not be touchable at all. Second, every team protects exactly one goaltender. Not two. One.

Why Akhtyamov is the name

Akhtyamov is 24, was drafted 106th overall in 2020, made his NHL debut on December 13, 2025, and then produced the best postseason any goaltender in the Toronto organization has had in years. He went 15-7-0 in the 2026 Calder Cup playoffs with a .923 save percentage, a 2.22 goals-against average and two shutouts, allowed 13 goals in five games against the Chicago Wolves in the final, and stopped 27 of 30 in the clincher. He won the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as playoff MVP as the Marlies won their second Calder Cup.

He is also, critically, well past the pro-experience exemption. He has been a professional goaltender for years across Russia and the AHL. Under the previous framework, he is fully exposed unless Toronto uses its single goaltender protection slot on him.

An expansion team building from nothing wants exactly this profile: cheap, 24, a proven winner at the level below, with actual NHL games on the résumé and no obligation to be a starter on day one. When The Athletic ran a mock expansion draft for the hypothetical 33rd franchise, Akhtyamov was the player it took from Toronto. That is not a coincidence — he is the highest-value exposed asset on the roster, and it is not close.

The goalie protection problem, specifically

Toronto spent this summer clearing its crease. Joseph Woll went to Philadelphia in the deal that brought back Samuel Ersson, Emil Andrae and a third-round pick. Dennis Hildeby went to Tampa Bay in the Nick Paul trade. Ersson was then flipped to Ottawa for a 2027 fifth-round pick. What is left is Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz in the NHL crease, with Akhtyamov and Samuel Hlavaj behind them.

That reshuffle makes the protection math harder, not easier. Toronto now has three goaltenders it would genuinely prefer not to lose and one slot. Bobrovsky signed a three-year deal on July 1. Stolarz is under contract on an extension. Akhtyamov is the youngest, cheapest and — depending on how the next two seasons go — potentially the best of the three by the time any expansion draft is held.

If the process happens while Bobrovsky and Stolarz are both signed and Akhtyamov is still waiting his turn, Toronto is in the worst version of this: forced to protect an established NHL goaltender and hand the expansion team a Calder Cup MVP for free. We have argued before that the Bobrovsky signing risks stalling Akhtyamov's development. Expansion adds a second, harder cost to that logjam — the risk of losing him outright.

What Toronto could actually do about it

Three options, in ascending order of unpleasantness.

The first is to protect him and expose a veteran. That only works if the timing lines up with a contract expiring, and it costs Toronto the goaltender it is currently paying to start.

The second is to trade him before the draft for real value rather than watch him leave for nothing. Every club facing this arithmetic in 2017 and 2021 did some version of this, and the trade market for a 24-year-old goaltender with a Butterfield Trophy is not thin. It is also an admission that the organization developed a legitimate NHL goaltender and then chose not to play him — a bad look for a front office selling a development-first identity.

The third is to make a side deal with the expansion team, which is how Vegas built half its initial roster. Clubs paid Vegas in picks and prospects to take a specific player or to leave one alone. Given that Toronto's cap sheet is already $2.75 million over the ceiling before any of this, paying a sweetener to protect a backup goaltender is not obviously the best use of Toronto's limited assets.

What this is not

A warning before anyone builds a protected list in their head: none of this is settled. The league has not decided whether to expand. It has not chosen between Houston and Austin. It has not announced a target season, an expansion draft date, or a single rule governing the process. The new CBA changed contract structures, LTIR, and roster mechanics in ways that could reasonably lead the league to modify the protection framework rather than copy it.

What is settled is the shape of the risk. Toronto has one elite young asset at a position where the league has historically allowed only one protection slot, and that asset is past the age where exemptions apply. However the details land, that is the exposure.

What's next

Watch late December. If the NHL and the Friedkin family reach the joint conclusion Bettman described, a Board of Governors vote follows, and only then does the league start writing expansion draft rules. Expect a lead time of at least a year and a half between approval and a first game, which pushes any actual draft well past this season.

In the meantime, the practical question for John Chayka is simpler and closer: how much does Akhtyamov play in 2026-27? A goaltender who spends the season in the AHL is an asset an expansion team happily takes. A goaltender who takes 20 NHL starts and forces Toronto's hand is a problem the organization solves before anyone else gets a vote. The crease is the most interesting thing on this roster, and it has been all summer.