When the owners of the NBA's Utah Jazz, the Smith Entertainment Group, put out a release on Wednesday saying they were ready to make Salt Lake City the home of a future NHL team, even as soon as next season (ahem, Arizona Coyotes), it got the NHL world all a-flutter about the possibility of yet another new market joining the league.

While they're eager enough to jump into the fray as soon as next season, it's got us thinking about yet another NHL expansion coming down the road.

With expansion on the table and the folks in Salt Lake eager to get a team as soon as possible, we've decided to mash those ideas up and break out a new-old tradition of scheming up how an expansion draft would go if it happened this summer.

How do we do it? Easy, we follow the same rules the Seattle Kraken had for their expansion draft. Unlike the Kraken's draft where Vegas was exempt, the Golden Knights have been around long enough to be thrown into the mix to lose a player. Seattle will get a pass, however, because it's still green in the league.

Players who are due to be unrestricted free agents this summer will not be eligible for our exercise, but RFAs will be. At least 20 players have to be under an active contract, and they'll need at least 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goalies.

We'll be loading up the Salt Lake City NHL team with 31 players to (probably) jump right into the NHL and become a force to be reckoned with. That's how it works now, right? Onward!