The protected lists were just released, and as expected, the Ottawa Senators have left Marc Methot and Bobby Ryan exposed, among others.

The Senators protected list, composed of 7 forwards, 3 defenseman and a goalie include (from TSN.ca):

Derick Brassard (F)
Ryan Dzingel (F)
Mike Hoffman (F)
Jean-Gabriel Pageau (F)
Zack Smith (F)
Mark Stone (F)
Kyle Turris (F)
Cody Ceci (D)
Erik Karlsson (D)
Dion Phaneuf (D)
Craig Anderson (G)

While rumors were that Pierre Dorion was attempting to trade either Phaneuf or Methot (or maybe Ceci), sometimes the trades you don't make work out for the best. They could have given one away just so that they weren't taken, like the Habs did with Nathan Beaulieu, but that isn't big picture thinking. The return for Beaulieu was a 3rd round pick, and by all accounts done because Beaulieu would have likely been the player they lost to Vegas. So they could have lost him, granted, but now they have essentially given him away for little return, and they are still going to lose another player. If they were that worried about losing Beaulieu to Vegas the return should have been much more in order to make that deal in my opinion, otherwise they should have just sucked it up, let him go for nothing and kept the rest of their assets.

Back to the Senators, Pierre Dorion now has to work out with Vegas a deal whereby counterpart George McPhee bypasses Methot. He will be doing it blind, however, since Ryan might also provide a name recognition and his value could be high after the playoff he had for the Senators. McPhee is in the driver's seat, even if Methot isn't his choice he can bluff Dorion into adding some incentive from the Senators.

While you could argue about the merits of protecting the young and struggling Ceci who they still see an upside over the veteran Methot, trading Phaneuf and likely retaining salary would have been a lateral move in order to protect Methot. Had Phaneuf waived his no-move clause it would have been a different story, but having Methot at $4.9 while retaining $2M or more of Phaneuf's contract wouldn't be much of a difference.

Unofficially, the asking price to avoid certain players has been a first round pick, which Vegas has allegedly amassed from 3 or 4 teams already in discussions. Ottawa, based on their playoff success sits with the 28th pick, and I wouldn't hesitate to offer that to Vegas to have them take Chris Wideman or Alex Burrows, or, depending on Dorion's line of thinking, Ryan. Or, even Freddie Claesson, who I am sure they would like to keep, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if he was the selection.

If they want to get the Ryan contract off the books, this is maybe the best chance to sever ties with him without having to retain salary or take back a bad contract. Probably not the direction I would go, but I don't have the job.

Hell, maybe offer them 2 first rounders to take either Stephane Da Costa or Nikita Filatov, who are apparently still Ottawa assets that have been exposed!

Also from TSN.ca, here is the full "exposed" list:

Casey Bailey (F)
Mike Blunden (F)
Alexandre Burrows (F)
Stephane Da Costa (F)
Christopher DiDomenico (F)
Nikita Filatov (F)
Chris Kelly (F)
Clarke MacArthur (F)
Max McCormick (F)
Chris Neil (F)
Tom Pyatt (F)
Ryan Rupert (F)
Bobby Ryan (F)
Viktor Stalberg (F)
Phil Varone (F)
Tommy Wingels (F)
Mark Borowiecki (D)
Fredrik Claesson (D)
Brandon Gormley (D)
Jyrki Jokipakka (D)
Marc Methot (D)
Patrick Sieloff (D)
Chris Wideman (D)
Mikael Wikstrand (D)
Mike Condon (G)
Chris Driedger (G)
Andrew Hammond (G)

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