The Detroit Red Wings have released their list of protected players ahead of the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft on Wednesday.
Detroit was allowed to protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender or eight skaters in all and one goaltender.
The protected players on the Red Wings include:
Forwards
- Justin Abdelkader
- Andreas Athanasiou
- Anthony Mantha
- Frans Neilsen
- Gustav Nyquist
- Tomas Tatar
- Henrik Zetterberg
Defensemen
- Danny DeKeyser
- Mike Green
- Nick Jensen
Goaltender
- Jimmy Howard
Dylan Larkin is not on the protected list because he cannot be drafted. The NHL says any first and second-year player is exempt from the draft, so he did not need to be protected.
Unprotected players who the Las Vegas Golden Knights could look at drafting include goalie Petr Mrazek, forwards Darren Helm, Riley Sheahan and Luke Glendening as well as defenseman Xavier Ouellet.
On Wednesday, the Las Vegas Golden Knights will select one player that was not protected from each NHL team to get to 30 players. They have to have 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goaltenders.
Other rules for the Golden Knights include having at least 20 players who are under contract for 201718
Pierre LeBrun from TSN also reports that general managers are expected to call Las Vegas and ask them to draft a certain player from another team and then try to trade for that player.
The entire list of unprotected players include
Forwards
- Louis-Marc Aubry
- Mitch Callahan
- Colin Campbell
- Martin Frk
- Luke Glendening
- Darren Helm
- Drew Miller
- Tomas Nosek
- Riley Sheahan
- Ben Street
- Eric Tangradi
Defensemen
- Adam Almquist
- Jonathan Ericsson
- Niklas Kronwall
- Brian Lashoff
- Dylan McIlrath
- Xavier Ouellet
- Ryan Sproul
Goaltenders
- Jared Coreau
- Petr Mrazek
- Edward Pasquale
- Jake Paterson
