Fleury among players available for Vegas expansion draft
Three-time Stanley Cup champion goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, Nashville forward James Neal and Anaheim defenceman Sami Vatanen were among the high-profile players made available on Sunday for the Vegas Golden Knights to select in the NHL expansion draft.
Now it’s on Golden Knights general manager George McPhee to pore over the list of unprotected players and select one from each of the NHL’s 30 teams by Wednesday.
Fleury was left unprotected by Pittsburgh after he agreed to waive the no-movement clause in his contract. The Penguins instead protected Matt Murray a week after the second-year goalie led them to win their second consecutive championship.
The Predators were put in a bind by exposing Neal, a 10-time 20-goal-scorer, because they elected to protect a fourth defenceman. Vatanen was the oddman out in being left unprotected from a deep and talented group of Ducks defencemen. The fifthyear Marc-Andre Fleury (left) and James Neal are among the high-profile players available to the Vegas Golden Knights in Wednesday’s expansion draft.
player, however, won’t be ready for the start of the season after having surgery to repair a shoulder injury.
Neal wasn’t the only highprofile player left exposed by the Predators, who are coming off their first Stanley Cup Final appearance. Other notable Nashville players unprotected were forwards Pontus Aberg and Colton Sissons.
Other notable forwards left unprotected were: Minnesota centre Eric Staal, a nine-time 20-goal-scorer, Los Angeles forward
Dustin Brown and Montreal’s Tomas Plekanec. As for defencemen, Buffalo’s Zach Bogosian and Dallas’ Dan Hamhuis are available.
There’s also a wealth of proven goaltenders available given that teams were required to expose at least one. Aside from Fleury, other goalies exposed are Florida’s Roberto Luongo, Detroit’s Peter Mrazek and Philadelphia’s Michal Neuvirth.
The unprotected list includes players eligible to become restricted or unrestricted free agents, which the Golden Knights have the option to sign over the next three days. Any pending free agent signed would count as Vegas’ expansion-draft selection from that player’s team.
What’s uncertain is how many trades the Golden Knights have negotiated with teams to influence which player Vegas selects or avoids.
McPhee has said he’s had contact with all teams and was expected to have several trades in place. In exchange, McPhee was intent on stockpiling draft picks to help spur the franchise’s growth through youth.
Those deals won’t be formally revealed until Wednesday.
There’s also nothing barring Vegas from having a deal in place to select a player in order to trade him to another team.
The Islanders were the only team that protected five defencemen: Johnny Boychuk, Nick Leddy, Travis Hamonic Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech, leaving forwards Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome and defencemen Calvin de Haan and Thomas Hickey available.