The New York Islanders released their protected players list ahead of the upcoming expansion draft, and it features some surprises.
Well, this is… unexpected.
On Sunday morning, the league’s 30 teams released their protected lists ahead of the upcoming expansion draft. The Islanders have earned the distinction as being the only organization to protect five defensemen.
#Isles protected list: Tavares, Ladd, Lee, Boychuk, Leddy, Hamonic, Pelech, Pulock, Greiss.
— Arthur Staple (@StapeAthletic) June 18, 2017
Surprisingly, the Isles chose to protect Adam Pelech rather than Calvin de Haan, Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome. This suggests that the team almost certainly has a deal in place with Vegas general manager George McPhee to not choose any of these players.
A reminder: some of the players you will see exposed today may already be protected in another fashion by a side deal with Vegas.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) June 18, 2017
Another reminder: teams are going to see the lists today and then call Vegas to say: Can you draft that guy for us and we'll give you this..
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) June 18, 2017
The Islanders have undergone a complete 360° over the past couple weeks. Prior to Saturday afternoon, when the rosters froze and no further moves could be made, beat writers and bloggers alike speculated that Garth Snow would flip Travis Hamonic and/or Calvin de Haan for Jordan Eberle or Matt Duchene. It evidently didn’t go down that way.
I recently went so far as to as to say that “there’s no satisfactory alternative to not making a move.” While that’s not completely true, it’s curious nonetheless that Snow didn’t end up making a deal.
Doug Weight recently said that “It’s an important three weeks,” and that “any time we could improve our team, we’ll do,” suggesting that further moves could be inevitable
