ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild announced Sunday the players they're protecting in Wednesday's NHL Expansion Draft.
The Seattle Kraken – the NHL's newest franchise – will select one player from each team, excluding the Vegas Golden Knights, who joined the league in 2017.
Each team can protect a select number of players, therefore the Kraken will not have the ability to draft the following Wild players:
- Cam Talbot, goalie
- Jonas Brodin, defenseman
- Matt Dumba, defenseman
- Jared Spurgeon, defenseman
- Joel Eriksson Ek, forward
- Kevin Fiala, forward
- Marcus Foligno, forward
- Jordan Greenway, forward
- Ryan Hartman, forward
- Nico Sturm, forward
- Mat Zuccarello, forward
Also exempt from the expansion draft are first- and second-year professionals, as well as all unsigned draft selections, according to the release.
The Wild recently announced they were going to be buying out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, who both had no trade clauses on their contracts, meaning Minnesota's front office would have had to protect both players and expose two others to the draft.
