3 one star ratings, with no comments...

Staal will be protected.

Mrazek will be protected....or traded.

Plus there is way too many big contracts on this list. I'm guessing Vegas will go cheap and young right away in the hopes of landing a top 3 draft pick to build their franchise around.

Copley is exempt from the expansion draft because he has only played 2 NHL games during his career.

Minnesota has huge decisions to make. Whoever they give up will be a top 6 forward or top 2 defenseman for Las Vegas. It would be in their best interest to protect their youth.

Using the tool, it is fairly tough to go all that young. They are required to choose 20 players with contracts for next year. Most of the good young players in the league will be protected. There are a lot of RFA's who are not under contract for next season, but really can't be selected due to the requirement on contracts situation. On the flip side, teams are being forced to protect younger players in order to provide the adequate number of players per position for Vegas to choose from. Like in Ottawa's situation, they should chose to protect 3 defenseman and then the rest forwards but doing so wouldn't leave any forwards per the requirements. They are basically forced to expose two of their forwards due to the way they are built.

I am guessing the Wild will pull some strings and have Vegas select Scandella by throwing in picks/prospects.

Copley is not exempt

Actually I used the tool and got pretty young and had lots of cap space unlike you here. Check it out.

First off, only 29 players selected. Also a bunch of guys taken that will not be left exposed. If anything they'll be traded away at a loss to teams who have room to upgrade at a position at least. Better then losing something for nothing. there's a bunch of guys that LV would be unwise to select because they will be UFA by years end and have very little value for resale anyway. There's also the idea that LV and teams can cut side deals. Etc Etc Etc

Its not the worst expansion draft team I've seen but there is some room for improvement. Although in all honesty, until a couple days before the expansion draft, no one could possibly give this a realistic outlook yet. SO much will change from now till when LV selects their players. A lot of the players that technically look like they will be available now, most certainly won't be available come the expansion draft as teams will help out each other in order to not lose players for nothing. We still don't now who will waive their NMC's. Some players might be on LTIR by the end of this season for all we know also.

In all fairness, its a crap shoot at the moment. Its like trying to predict the NHL draft order 3 years in advance....Virtually impossible. So much can change in 3 years.

Edit: Also of course ppl are going to get sensitive about their team losing a good player for nothing. No one wants their team to look stupid compared to other teams. It somehow makes them feel stupid.

This team is illegal for one. You need to have 20 contracts that are beyond 2017.