Expansion Draft: Ottawa Senators Release Their Protected Players List

The Senators announced their 11-man protected list prior to the July 21st NHL Expansion Draft

Announced this afternoon via the Ottawa Senators Twitter account, the team protected the following players:

No surprises here. The Senators were projected to protect the players above and the released list remained status quo. In what was a bit of a hot-button topic, the Senators elected to protect Austin Watson over Evgenii Dadonov and his $5 million cap hit. While I don’t necessarily support the decision, it won’t be a determining factor in the success of the team in the future.

The players left exposed were to be expected after Dadonov:

The Senators made the wise move in protecting Filip Gustavsson over cap-liability Matt Murray and promising goaltender Joey Daccord. The decision was likely always going to come down to Daccord and Gustavsson, with the latter being the obvious choice due to his outstanding run of play in the latter half of last season (0.933 SV%, 2.16 GAA).

After Dadonov, Daccord and Murray there likely remains two other players of interest for Seattle in Chris Tierney and Vitaly Abramov, but it remains likely that the Kraken take their chance on either Dadonov or Daccord. The Senators found themselves in an enviable position this expansion draft with many of their core players not meeting the eligibility requirements to be selected, and not having to worry about losing an important piece.