I have to admit to being surprised when the Avalanche chose to put Blake Comeau and Rocco Grimaldi on their 11-player protected list for Wednesday's expansion draft to stock the Vegas Golden Knights.

Goalie Calvin Pickard, defenseman Mark Barberio and forwards Mikhail Grigorenko and Carl Soderberg are among those who could be taken by the first-year team.

Each NHL team will lose one player to the Golden Knights.

The Avalanche, after electing to buy out the final year of defenseman Francois Beauchemin's three-year contract, have seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie on their protected list:

Goalie Semyon Varlamov; defensemen Tyson Barrie, Eric Johnson and Nikita Zadorov; forwards Sven Andrighetto, Blake Comeau, Matt Duchene, Rocco Grimaldi, Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Nieto.

The following players were not protected:

Goalies: Calvin Pickard, Joe Cannata and Jeremy Smith.

Defensemen: Mark Barberio, Mat Clark, Eric Gelinas, Cody Goloubef, Duncan Siemens, Fedor Tyutin and Patrick Wiercioch.

Forwards: Troy Bourke, Gabriel Bourque, Rene Bourque, Joe Colborne, Turner Elson, Felix Girard, Mikhail Grigorenko, Samuel Henley, John Mitchell, Jim O'Brien, Brandon Ranford, Mike Sisio and Carl Soderberg.

Under the rules set by the NHL, teams had to expose at least one defenseman under contract. Barberio, 27, has one year left at $750,000.

Grigorenko, 23, has been an enigma, but he's still young and his 10 goals were sixth best on the Avalanche this past season; granted, that isn't saying a whole lot.

The pint-sized Grimaldi, 24, has plenty of speed but only played in four NHL games this season following his acquisition from Florida for goalie Reto Berra. He had 55 points (31 goals, 24 assists) in 72 games with San Antonio.

As for Comeau, 31, he slumped to eight goals while playing in 77 games and was guilty of far too many unnecessary penalties. He has one year left on a contract with a $2.4 million salary cap hit.

Soderberg, 31, had 14 points (six goals, eight assists) in 80 games after posting a career-high 51 points (12 goals, 39 assists) in 82 games after the Avalanche signed him to a five-year, $23.75 million contract before trading Ryan O'Reilly to Buffalo. Soderberg has three years left on the deal with a cap charge of $4.75 million.

Grimaldi and Grigorenko are eligible for restricted free agency July 1.

The Avalanche are showing plenty of faith in Varlamov, who is recovering from a surgery to each of his hips in the hope it will put an end to his chronic groin problems. He went 6-17-0 with a 3.38 goals-against average and .898 save percentage.

Varlamov, 29, has two years left on his contract with an annual salary cap hit of $5.9 million, so it's doubtful Vegas would have selected him.

Pickard played a career-high 50 games in his absence and went 15-31-2 with a 2.98 GAA and .904 save percentage. Playing on a far superior Team Canada in the IIHF World Championships, Pickard helped lead his team to a silver medal, falling to Sweden in a shootout in the championship game.

Pickard, 25, has one year remaining with a $1 million cap charge.

Plenty of teams have been making deals with the Golden Knights that will enable them to keep some of their unprotected players. We'll know soon enough if that is the case with Colorado.

*****

The NHL and NHL Players Association announced that the team payroll range established for the 2017-18 season will provide for a lower limit of $55.4 million, an adjusted midpoint of $65.2 million, and an upper limit of $75 million.



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