Avalanche Release Expansion Draft Protected List

The leadup to the deadline for protected lists came and went with some minor XD related deals but nothing like we were lead to believe. For better or worse, this exercise that we’ve been dreading for more than a year will come down to who Vegas has access to and what kind of leverage they can exert on the other 30 teams. Starting right now they are open for business and have a gun to the head of 30 NHL GMs.

This is the Avs situation:

Protected

MacKinnon
Landeskog
Duchene
Grimaldi
Comeau
Andrighetto
Nieto
Johnson
Barrie
Zadorov
Varlamov

Exposed (and signed)

Colborne
Soderberg
Barberio
Pickard

Exposed NHL RFA/UFA

Grigorenko
Weircioch
Rene Bourque
Mitchell
Tyutin
Goloubef

Exposed AHL RFA/UFA

Jeremy Smith
Felix Girard
Brendan Ranford
Joe Cannata
Mat Clark
Jim O’Brien
Eric Gelinas
Mike Sislo
Turner Elson
Troy Bourke
Sam Henley
Gabe Bourque
Duncan Siemens

[Edit to include full exposed lists]

Slim pickings from the Avs for the VGKs. The value is in Grigo and Picks and maybe Barberio, interesting to see how this all works out.

Beyond the Avs additions to the pool, it’s going to be important to scan the 29 other lists for opportunities and to get a feeling for who the VGKs are going to hoover out of burgundy & blue. This isn’t about them building a team, this is about squeezing as many assets as possible out of everyone else in the NHL.

A note on the selection reveals during the cheesy award show Wednesday night: They will go from worst record to first record so the Avs, of course, will be the first announcement.

Oodles of analysis to follow over the next 3 days, lock it in and rip the knob off.