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The Los Angeles Kings’ expansion draft protected list has been revealed and is as follows:
FORWARDS (7): Lias Andersson, Viktor Arvidsson, Dustin Brown, Alex Iafallo, Adrian Kempe, Anze Kopitar, Trevor Moore
DEFENSE (3): Drew Doughty, Matt Roy, Sean Walker
GOALIE (1): Cal Petersen
As predicted, the team ended up going with the 7-3-1 protection format, rather than a 4-4-1 format. Up front, the one somewhat surprising decision was Dustin Brown being protected. He did lead the Kings in goals this year but he’ll be turning 37 years old in November and with just one year remaining on his contract, it wasn't a guarantee that we'd see him protected.
The rest of the forwards protected were relatively expected, with Lias Andersson snagging a spot as well. This leaves Andreas Athanasiou, Carl Grundstrom, Brendan Lemieux, Austin Wagner and Blake Lizotte as the notable forwards available.
On the back end, the list went as expected, with Sean Walker taking the last spot over Kale Clague. Olli Maatta was also left exposed on the blue line and in net, Cal Petersen was protected over Jonathan Quick.
So overall, no huge surprises here. The frontrunner to be selected is Kale Clague, but it’s always possible we could see a forward go instead, as Seattle will have their pick of many different defenders.
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