Here's the Flyers' protection list for the Vegas expansion

Dave Isaac | The Courier-Post

After a half-hour delay Sunday morning, the NHL announced teams' protection lists ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft.

Now Vegas general manager George McPhee has until Wednesday at 10 a.m. to determine which player he wants to take from each team among those left unprotected.

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Here’s the list of protected players for the Flyers, who opted to go with the formation of seven forwards, three defensemen and a goalie over eight skaters and one goalie.

FORWARDS

Sean Couturier, Valtteri Filppula, Claude Giroux, Scott Laughton, Brayden Schenn, Wayne Simmonds, Jakub Voracek

DEFENSEMEN

Shayne Gostisbehere, Radko Gudas, Brandon Manning

GOALIE

Anthony Stolarz

Vegas will make one selection from each team Wednesday unless it has signed a pending free agent from that team. That leaves the following Flyers assets available for the Golden Knights, listed with their salary cap hit and year their contract runs through or their free-agent status.

FORWARDS

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare ($1.45M; 2019), Greg Carey ($650,000; 2019), Chris Conner (UFA), Boyd Gordon (UFA), Taylor Leier (RFA), Colin McDonald ($637,500; 2018), Andy Miele (UFA; signed in Swedish Hockey League), Michael Raffl ($2.35M; 2019), Matt Read ($3.625M; 2018), Chris VandeVelde (UFA), Jordan Weal (UFA), Dale Weise ($2.35M; 2020), Eric Wellwood (UFA; now an associate coach with OHL Flint Firebirds)

DEFENSEMEN

Mark Alt (UFA), TJ Brennan ($625,000; 2018), Michael Del Zotto (UFA), Andrew MacDonald ($5M; 2020), Will O'Neill ($612,500; 2018), Jesper Pettersson (RFA; signed in Swedish Hockey League), Nick Schultz (UFA)

GOALIES

Steve Mason (UFA), Michal Neuvirth ($2.5M; 2019)

There aren’t a ton of surprises in the pool that McPhee has to choose from other than a familiar name. Eric Wellwood, who hasn’t played since 2014 due to a career-ending leg laceration, never filed paperwork for retirement, so he remains on the Flyers’ reserve list.

The most telling decision the Flyers made was protecting Scott Laughton, the 2012 first-round pick who was not a full-time player in the NHL last season. The Flyers have not yet started negotiations with Laughton or many of their other restricted free agents.

Losing Laughton for nothing, had he been selected, may not have hurt the Flyers' offensive production but it's against general manager Ron Hextall's philosophy. He has been trying to find ways to protect as many assets as possible.

Friday night he traded Nick Cousins, who likely would have been left unprotected, to the Arizona Coyotes along with goalie prospect Merrick Madsen for a 2018 fifth-round pick and forward prospect Brendan Warren. Cousins was among the players Arizona protected on its list.

It’s just another wrinkle in a crazy offseason.

"It’s been different for sure," Hextall said Friday. "Again, we’re in a reasonable position. We’re gonna lose a good player, make no mistake. Whoever we lose, we’re gonna lose a good player."

Who that selection is might reflect McPhee's strategy as a GM more than what he wants on the ice. He has a 72-hour window to sign any unprotected pending free agent in the league, but the team that owns that player's rights wouldn't lose another player in the expansion draft.

So does McPhee sign a player like Jordan Weal — who has agreed on term with the Flyers on a new contract, but not salary — that would likely be a useful player for him next season or does he select goalie Michal Neuvirth, who has a favorable salary-cap hit, and potentially flip him to another team? Or maybe he wants Neuvirth between the pipes for him, given the familiarity with goaltending coach Dave Prior, potentially in a tandem with Marc-Andre Fleury.

The consensus around the league is that McPhee will select several goalies in the expansion draft for the purpose of flipping them to a team with a goaltending need like the Flyers have.

Not only will the Flyers not lose a core player with the construction of their protected list, they’re also in good standing with the salary cap. They have plenty of cap space (around $8 million against the new $75-million cap depending on who is on the projected roster for next season with a couple holes to fill) and if they lose a roster player like Raffl they’d have even more.

A roster freeze keeps the 30 teams from last season from making any moves until 8 a.m. Thursday morning.

By the time it thaws out, the Flyers may have new priorities.

Dave Isaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com