>> I also put this team together assuming there were no side deals being done,

If that's the case then you can't have Theodore. He was traded to Vegas, not selected in the expansion draft.

While he was traded to Vegas, he was not protected for the expansion draft. My guess is that Anaheim chose to use him as a sweetener to convince Vegas to take Clayton Stoner's contract, and would've traded him had Vegas not agreed to take Stoner, that or they would've worked out a different way to protect him, potentially involving a different side deal with Vegas, but in theory Vegas could've selected Theodore, not Stoner, and broke their deal with Anaheim, screwing them over and ruining their GM's reputation on day one.

You could make the assumption that Theodore wouldn't have ended up in Vegas without a side deal, but I didn't and just selected the best player available, which was Theodore

Theodore was exempt from the expansion draft. The Ducks traded him to Vegas so they would take Stoner as you said, but the two guys they were afraid to lose were Josh Manson and/or Sami Vatanen. Theodore was a side deal and your "rules" in the description was no side deals is all I'm saying. The Knights would have taken Manson in the draft.

This is one of the biggest bungles that Bob Murray ever did as a GM and is one of the primary reasons the Ducks are in the bottom feeder state they are in.

as per bleacher report "All pro players with two or fewer years of NHL experience and unsigned draft picks are protected, but don't count toward the team's final total.", and as of the expansion draft Theodore had played parts of 4 professional seasons, making him eligible to be selected, and since Anaheim chose not to protect him he was available for the taking. The Knight's couldn't have taken Manson, he was protected but as you said it was Mason and Vatanen the ducks were worried about, and Vatanen was left unprotected. Had there not been a side deal, Vatanen likely would've been a golden knight, but drafting the team 7 years later Theodore is the clear choice, and he was eligble to be selected due to his 4 partial professional seasons and being left unprotected, and I didn't make any assumptions that the protection lists would've been different had side deals not been agreed upon.

Mason was not protected and Theodore was not available:

https://www.nhl.com/news/protected-list-for-vegas-golden-knights-nhl-expansion-draft-289972722

From that article...

All first- and second-year professionals are exempt from selection, as are unsigned draft choices.

The source you quoted calling these guys "protected but not counting towards the team's total" is really strange wording. Much easier to call them exempt, which is what they were. Theodore played 19 games in 15/16 and 34 games in 16/17 for the Ducks prior to the draft. The two seasons he played less than 10 games in the AHL didn't count as his contract slid in those.

An additional part of Murray's bungle here was giving Bieksa, who was washed as a player at that point, a full NMC. All players with such clauses required protecting and that meant the Ducks protected Fowler, Lindholm and Bieksa. Protecting Manson instead of Bieksa would have been an alternate way around trading Theodore but that was not an option.

well that's a capfriendly problem, I used their expansion draft simulator and theodore was available, manson was too I just must've missed him

No worries, I'm having a slow Monday so killing a little time on cap friendly is all I'm after here. And as you can probably tell I'm a little bitter about that draft :-)

Murray wasn't the only GM that was really, really dumb in that process and we all saw the result with Vegas instantly going to the top of the standings and taking only a few years to win a cup. People thinking Seattle was going to enjoy that same level of success were fooling themselves. GM's learned a hard lesson with Vegas and didn't repeat it. Seattle made very few side deals and acquired almost no players that were not exposed to the draft.

yeah, as a habs fan Vegas's instant success was great for us, god I can't imagine where we'd be without Suzuki