The Seattle Kraken will join the National Hockey League as a fully-fledged team in just over a week via an expansion draft. We’ve been mulling over the Calgary Flames’ protection options recently and we’re pretty confident of one thing: the Flames will opt to protect a goalie, three defensemen and seven skaters because they leave too many good players exposed by protecting a goalie and eight skaters.
The 7-3-1 option
Here’s the conventional wisdom protection list:
- Goalie Jacob Markstrom
- Defensemen Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson and Chris Tanev
- Forwards Johnny Gaudreau, Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane, Mikael Backlund, Dillon Dube and Sean Monahan
The best contracted player left available is 37-year-old Mark Giordano, but other than him there’s 33-year-old Milan Lucic and a smattering of players that haven’t really moved the needle at the NHL level.