The Kings are trying to work their way out of salary cap purgatory, largely due to pricey, lengthy contracts with two forwards that no longer produce much – Marian Gaborik and Dustin Brown. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, Vegas won’t select either without costly strings attached, thereby upping their $6.98M in cap space, but there’s no reason to protect them.
With these two exposed the forward pool gets shallower, making the eight skaters/one goalie protection scheme feasible. They’ll protect team captain Anze Kopitar who has a no movement clause on his $10M yearly contract, as well as leading scorer Jeff Carter.