PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins have officially announced the list of players they'll leave unprotected for Wednesday night's expansion draft.
The newly formed Seattle Kraken will select one player from the unprotected list of each NHL team to form their roster.
The expansion draft will take place at 8 p.m. Wednesday on ESPN2.
The Flyers' unprotected list includes:
- Andy Andreoff
- Connor Bunnaman
- David Kase
- Pascal Laberge
- Samuel Morin
- German Rubtsov
- Carsen Twarynski
- James van Riemsdyk
- Jakub Voracek
- Mikhail Vorobyev
- Chris Bigras
- Justin Braun
- Shayne Gostisbehere
- Robert Hagg
- Derrick Pouliot
- Nate Prosser
- Tyler Wotherspoon
- Brian Elliott
- Alex Lyon
- Felix Sandstrom
The most prominent names available to the Kraken are James van Riemsdyk and Jakub Voracek, two of Philadelphia's top forwards. If there's a bright side to one of them joining Seattle, it would be that the Flyers would get some salary cap relief.
Van Riemsdyk and Voracek tied with Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux for the team lead in scoring last season, with 43 points. But Voracek turns 32 this summer and is signed for the next three seasons with an $8.25 million cap hit. Van Riemsdyk is 32, under contract for two years, and has a yearly cap hit of $7 million, according to NBC Sports Philadelphia.
Giroux, Travis Konecny, Kevin Hayes, Sean Couturier, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Oskar Lindblom, and Scott Laughton are the forwards protected by the Flyers. They will not be available for the Kraken in the expansion draft. Philadelphia also protected defensmen Ivan Provorov, Travis Sandheim, and Ryan Ellis, who joined the Flyers over the weekend in a trade with the Nashville Predators.
Goalkeeper Carter Hart is also on the Flyers' protected list.
The Penguins left the following players unprotected and available for selection by the Kraken:
- Pontus Aberg
- Anthony Angello
- Zach Aston-Reese
- Josh Currie
- Frederick Gaudreau
- Mark Jankowski
- Sam Lafferty
- Sam Miletic
- Evan Rodrigues
- Colton Sceviour
- Brandon Tanev
- Jason Zucker
- Cody Ceci
- Kevin Czuczman
- Mark Friedman
- Jesper Lindgren
- Andrey Pedan
- Marcus Pettersson
- Juuso Riikola
- Chad Ruhwedel
- Yannick Weber
- Casey Desmith
- Maxime Lagace
Tanev, Zucker and Aston-Reese are the most-prominent forwards left available for Seattle, along with Petterson, a defenseman.
Pittsburgh protected forwards Sidney Crosby (duh), Jeff Carter, Jake Guentzel, Teddy Blueger, Kasperi Kapanen, Evgeni Malkin, and Bryan Rust, along with defensemen Kris Letang, Mike Matheson, and Brian Dumoulin and goalie Tristin Jarry.
