SAN JOSE — Mikkel Boedker certainly hopes he’s back in a Sharks uniform next season and not in a situation where he has to make another transition to a new team.

Boedker, though, could easily be among the players exposed by the Sharks for the June 20 expansion draft, where the Vegas Golden Knights will pluck one player off of each team’s roster to get set for their inaugural NHL season in 2017-18.

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Sharks reach agreement with depth centerman on two-year deal Per the NHL, the 30 teams must submit their Protection List by 5 p.m. (ET) on June 17. Vegas must submit its Expansion Draft Selections by 5 p.m. (ET) on June 20. The announcement of the who the Golden Knights selected in the expansion draft will be released June 21.

“It’s what you’re hopeful for,” Boedker said on Monday of staying in San Jose. “It’s not really in my hands, so I can’t really comment too much on it.”

Each NHL team has the option of protecting seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or protecting eight skaters — regardless of position — and one goalie.

Sharks general manager Doug Wilson has reason to feel his team is well-positioned for the draft.

The Sharks do not have anyone who is on a no-movement clause past this season that needs to be protected, so players such as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, who are pending unrestricted free agents, are not eligible for the expansion draft.

There has been speculation that the Sharks, if they want to bring back Thornton or Marleau or both, would agree to a deal in principle with those players but not officially sign anything until after the expansion draft.

Labeled “drawer deals,” such agreements would conceivably give the Sharks the flexibility of not having to spend a protected spot on Thornton or Marleau, but instead use that spot to protect another player. It is important to point out that there’s been no indication that such an agreement would take place.

That’s a good thing, as it appears the NHL would frown on such agreements, with deputy commissioner Bill Daly telling TSN’s Pierre LeBrun in November that teams that violate the expansion draft rules would be punished.

Vegas would also have permission between June 17 when teams have to submit their protected lists to the league and June 20, when it formally drafts players, to speak with pending unrestricted free agents.

Those talks would be rather pointless if the player has already agreed to a deal with their existing employer.

“There has to be a high level of diligence to make sure those things don’t happen and to make sure people know there will be significant penalties imposed if they were to screw around with the rules,” Daly told LeBrun.

The players the Sharks will almost assuredly protect are Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Brent Burns and Martin Jones. Aaron Dell would have to be exposed.

Among those that could also be exposed are Boedker, Joel Ward, Barclay Goodrow, Justin Braun, Paul Martin, David Schlemko, Brenden Dillon, Mirco Mueller and Dylan DeMelo.

Players with two years or less of NHL or AHL experience also do not have to be protected, so forwards such as Joonas Donskoi, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Danny O’Regan are exempt. So are defensemen Jeremy Roy, Julius Bergman and Joakim Ryan and goalie Mantas Armalis.

“We’re pretty fortunate,” Wilson said Monday. “You are going to lose somebody. The direction that we’re going to go … we’re very fortunate to have key, core players at the proper ages like Jones and Vlasic and Burns, Couture, Pavelski, Hertl, etcetera, that we know we’ll have a good team going forward.

“We’ll get through the expansion draft losing one player. We’re positioned as well as any team around.”

Wilson said he has made the decision whether to go the 7-3-1 route or protect eight skaters and one goalie, but, naturally, wouldn’t divulge which way he went.

There would be advantages and drawbacks to either choice.

By protecting seven forwards and three defensemen, the Sharks could ensure that they hang on to younger players such as Melker Karlsson and Chris Tierney, or even Jannik Hansen, who has one year left on his contract.

Doing that, though, would expose at least one of their top four defenseman, such as Braun and or Martin. Even Mueller, who the Sharks have invested a lot of time developing over the past two seasons after a bungled 2014-15 campaign, could be exposed.

Protecting eight skaters, though, would allow the Sharks to possibly keep their top two defense pairs intact, but risk losing Tierney, Karlsson or Hansen.

“No matter who it is, we’re going to lose a good player, and every team is going to lose a good player,” Vlasic said Monday. “It’s to satisfy the league’s desire to have another team.”