Section 215
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A Look At The Philadelphia Flyers Protected List

By Amedeo Guglielmelli

Mar 25, 2017; Columbus, OH, USA; Philadelphia Flyers right wing Matt Read (24) against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. The Blue Jackets won 1-0. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 25, 2017; Columbus, OH, USA; Philadelphia Flyers right wing Matt Read (24) against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena. The Blue Jackets won 1-0. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports /
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The rules of the Expansion Draft are quite simple. All first and second year players are protected, while anyone unwilling to waive their No Movement Clause (NMC) must be protected.

With the Expansion Draft being held this Wednesday, the 30 NHL teams had to submit their protected player’s list Saturday at 5 pm. Every team’s protected list has officially become public and Ron Hextall made some questionable moves… again.

The protected list is broken down into three sub-lists. It consists of the forwards, defensemen, and goalies. The 30 teams are allowed to protect seven (7) forwards, three (3) defensemen, and one (1) goalie, for a total of eleven (11) athletes.

First, were going to observe the group of forwards that Hexy decided to protect.

  • Sean Couturier
  • Valtteri Filppula (NMC)
  • Claude Giroux (NMC)
  • Scott Laughton
  • Brayden Schenn
  • Wayne Simmonds (NMC)
    • Jakub Voracek

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    What is shocking is that Scott Laughton is protected. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue, but Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was given the “A” after Mark Streit was moved. It is going to be interesting to see who will be sporting the third “A” next year. There could be some bad blood between Hexy and Bellemare.

    Some replacements could be Voracek, Gudas, Schenn, or even Coots. The list goes on and on, but there could potentially be some animosity between Bellemare and the front office. A team needs chemistry to work fluidly and there could be members of this team that are highly disappointed that their alternate is not protected and could be lost.

    Next, let’s look at the protected defencemen.

    This isn’t that surprising. Could Ron Hextall have kept Andrew MacDonald protected to eat some minutes next season with Robert Hagg, Travis Sanheim, or Samuel Morin slated to make the jump to the National Hockey League? Sure but now he has the ability to get rid of that atrocious contract.

    Being free from MacDonald can help free up some much-needed cap space. The same could be said about the Golden Knights taking either Matt Read or Michael Raffl. I’ll personally drive them to Las Vegas myself.

    Finally, the goalie we protected.

    This is where the real head scratching begins. Realistically, the Las Vegas Golden Knights could select Michal Neuvirth, Brian Elliott, and Stanley Cup winning goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. One area they could excel in is their goaltender play.

    The list of players the Las Vegas Golden Knights may choose from consist of Bellemare, Greg Carey (F), Chris Connor (F), Boyd Gordon (F), Taylor Leier (F), Colin McDonald (F), Andy Miele (F), Michael Raffl (F), Matt Read (F), Chris VandeVelde (F), Jordan Weal (F), Dale Weise (F), Eric Wellwood (F), Mark Alt (D), TJ Brennan (D), MDZ (D), Andrew MacDonald (D), Will O’Neill (D), Jesper Pettersson (D), Nick Schultz (D), Steve Mason (G), and Michal Neuvirth (G). This could be a very interesting change of the roster with who gets drafted and the UFA that we could or could not sign.

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    This could be very bad for the Flyers.  If Neuvy gets drafted that means the Flyers will be supporting a goaltender tandem of Stolarz and Carter Hart, Stolarz and Felix Sandstrom. Any playoff aspirations Flyers fans had for next year could be ruined in large part to Hexy letting Mason and Neuvy leaving. It could be a very cold winter in the City of Brotherly Love this year.

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