newhook and thomas if taxi squad counts will definitely not be left unprotected. st louis will 100% be protecting thomas/ kyrou/ buchnevich over anyone.
Colorado probably allows nichuskin or lehkonen be available over newhook and they probably won't go 4 D route and either move girard pre draft or let him be available.

montreal definitely not letting Dach be available only guys that would qualify at forward over him that they would protect is suzuki+caufield


half these guys will be entering UFA and would be pointless to draft unless this team wants to compete or has a guaranteed extension in place

ottawa most likely protects Stutzle/ Tkachuck/ Norris/ Debrincat/ giroux/ Batherson/ pinto/ Chabot/ sanderson/ zub and allow joseph/formenton to be available

unsure if lundkvist is even available to be drafted, unless you reach a certain amount of games played you can be exempt from needed to being protected and can't be selected.


overall way to many guys that would be protected are involved in this.

expansion teams aren't usually getting good players
all the guys like
theodore
karlsson
marchessault
mccann
all broke out post expansion draft and would most likely be protected looking back at it now.


the guys that are usually available are guys who are around the ages of 26-30 on contracts with term on a team that needs to free cap
so like your gourde/ oleksiak type players
and then guys who have potential but have underperformed and need a change of scenery like your
Boqvists/ mccann/ puljujarvi's


another thing guys who have NMC can automatically be protected without the teams choice if the player says he doesn't want to be selected so guys like Ullmark/ Pavelski/ Petry probably aren't gonna let themselves go to a weaker team when they are already on a competitive team. the only reason i could see a player of that quality leaving a PO team to join a bottom feeder expansion team is if it is their hometown

The protected for this list was chosen by my friend as parts 1 and 2 for YouTube and tiktok