Red Wings Face Interesting Protection Options For Future Expansion Draft

With the news breaking on Wednesday that the NHL would be expanding into Las Vegas in 2017-18, the thoughts of many NHL fans went to the upcoming expansion draft, and who their team would be exposing to the process.

As ProHockeyTalk reports, clubs have two options for the expansion draft in terms of who to protect and who to expose for selection by the Las Vegas franchise.

"* Clubs will have two options for players they wish to protect in the Expansion Draft:

a) Seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender

b) Eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goaltender"

Additionally, players who have "no movement clauses" must be protected by their NHL clubs. All players with less than two years experience in the NHL, as well as unsigned draft choices are exempt from exposure and protected lists.

Each NHL team must have at least two forwards (70 games experience), one defenseman (40 games experience) and one goaltender with an NHL contract for at least the year 2017-18 available for selection by Las Vegas. Players who have missed their last 60 games due to injury may not be exposed to fill any of these requirements without approval of the league.

With all those rules in mind, what will the Red Wings expansion draft list look like?

The Red Wings have nobody they have to protect via the "No Movement Clause" option, though they do have six players who have no trade clauses intact for 2017-18. This means using any of them has trade bait to avoid a certain player being selected might be unlikely. Those six players are Gustav Nyquist, Justin Abdelkader, Mike Green, Niklas Kronwall, Jonathon Ericsson and Jimmy Howard.

Johan Franzen would be ineligible for exposure due to his concussion issues keeping him out of the lineup since October 10th, 2015. The language is unclear at this time if it means he must be protected, or if he'll be exempt from the lists

Any free agents Detroit signs in this offseason would be factored into the mix as well. If any are signed with a no movement clause they automatically are protected, otherwise they are at the discretion of GM Ken Holland to decide if they will be protected next year.

Good news for Red Wings fans, rookies Andreas Athanasiou and Dylan Larkin will not be on the table for selection as they will be two-year players when the expansion draft comes around. Forwards Tomas Nosek and Anthony Mantha also fall into this category.

As of this writing, pre free agent market signings, my proposed list given all the information known.

Protected List (7F, 3D, 1G)
G Petr Mrazek
D Danny DeKeyser
D Alexey Marchenko
D Mike Green
F Gustav Nyquist
F Justin Abdelkader
F Henrik Zetterberg
F Tomas Tatar
F Riley Sheahan
F Luke Glendening
F Johan Franzen (Assuming the injury rule means he has to be protected, if he is exempt this spot goes to Tomas Jurco)

This would leave the following available for selection to Las Vegas
G Jimmy Howard
D Niklas Kronwall
D Jonathon Ericsson
D Brendan Smith (UFA in 2017-18, might not be under team control in time for draft)
D Kyle Quincey (Possible re-sign this offseason)
F Darren Helm (Possible re-sign this offseason)
F Drew Miller (Possible re-sign this offseason)
F Teemu Pulkkinen
F Tomas Jurco (Assuming Franzen must be protected)

The expansion draft lists for all teams must be submitted to the NHL by June 17, 2017 and the announcement of the selections will take place on June 21st.