The Seattle Kraken will be joining the NHL in an on-ice capacity at the start of the 2021-22 regular season. They’ve filled out their front office and coaching staff, but now they need some players.
In order to fill out the roster, they will be selecting one player from 30 of the league’s 31 current teams in the expansion draft on July 21 (the Vegas Golden Knights are exempt, having just joined the league for the 2017-18 season). Prior to that, those other teams will devise a list of protected players: either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or eight skaters and one goalie. Here’s more on the format, schedule and everything else expansion-draft-related.
Who will each team protect? Have GMs learned their lessons from the Golden Knights expansion draft of 2017? Here are our projections for which players all 30 teams will protect.
Note: Emily Kaplan projected the Western Conference teams, while Greg Wyshynski projected the Eastern Conference teams. Thanks as always to our friends at CapFriendly for salary and contract data. Advanced stats are from Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey.