Three-time Stanley Cup champion goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, Nashville forward James Neal and Anaheim defenceman Sami Vatanen are among the high-profile players available for the Vegas Golden Knights to select in the NHL expansion draft.

Now it's on Golden Knights general manager George McPhee to spend the next three days poring over the list of available players and select one from each of the NHL's 30 teams.

Fleury was left unprotected by Pittsburgh after he agreed to waive the no-movement clause in his contract. The Penguins instead protected Matt Murray a week after the second-year goalie led them to win their second consecutive championship.

The Predators were put in a bind in when exposing Neal, a 10-time 20-goal-scorer, because they elected to protect a fourth defenceman.

Vatanen was the odd-man out in being left unprotected from a deep and talented group of Ducks defencemen. The fifth-year player, however, won't be ready for the start of the season after having surgery to repair a shoulder injury.

Neal wasn't the only high-profile player left exposed by the Predators, who are coming off their first Stanley Cup Final appearance. Other notable Nashville players unprotected were forwards Pontus Aberg and Colton Sissons.

Other notable forwards left unprotected were: Minnesota centre Eric Staal, a nine-time 20-goal-scorer, Los Angeles forward Dustin Brown and Montreal's Tomas Plekanec. As for defencemen, Buffalo's Zach Bogosian and Dallas' Dan Hamhuis are available.

There's also a wealth of proven goaltenders available given that teams were required to expose at least one. Aside from Fleury, other goalies exposed are Florida's Roberto Luongo, Detroit's Peter Mrazek and Philadelphia's Michal Neuvirth.

The unprotected list includes players eligible to become restricted or unrestricted free agents, which the Golden Knights have the option to sign over the next three days. Any pending free agent signed would count as Vegas' expansion-draft selection from that player's team.

What's uncertain is how many trades the Golden Knights have negotiated with teams to influence which player Vegas selects or avoids.

Golden Knights general manager George McPhee has said he's had contact with all teams and was expected to have several trades in place. In exchange, McPhee was intent on stockpiling draft picks to help spur the franchise's growth through youth.

Those deals won't be formally revealed until Wednesday.

There's also nothing barring Vegas from having a deal in place to select a player in order to trade him to another team.

The Islanders were the only team that protected five defencemen: Johnny Boychuk, Nick Leddy, Travis Hamonic Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech, leaving forwards Josh Bailey, Brock Nelson and Ryan Strome and defencemen Calvin de Haan and Thomas Hickey available.

Some players left unprotected, such as Ottawa forward Bobby Ryan, carry hefty contracts, which Vegas might shy away from so not to restrict the team's payroll structure under the salary cap. Ryan has five years left on a seven-year $50.8 million contract and represents a $7-plus-million cap hit.

The Senators were handcuffed by veteran defenceman Dion Phaneuf's decision to not waive his no-movement clause. That forced the team to also expose top-pairing blueliner Marc Methot.

Among players with previous connections to McPhee available are Stars centre Cody Eakin, Red Wings defenceman Mike Green, Capitals goaltender Philipp Grubauer, Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov and Neuvirth, whom he drafted in Washington.

The former Capitals GM also previously signed Washington defenceman Nate Schmidt out of college and Sharks right winger Joel Ward in free agency and traded for Flames right winger Troy Brouwer.

The release of the teams' protected lists kicks off a busy two-week stretch for the NHL. The league's annual awards ceremonies will be held in Las Vegas on Wednesday and then teams will gather in Chicago for the two-day entry draft, which opens on Friday.

Then comes the start of free agency, which opens on July 1.

Several general managers, including Arizona's John Chayka on Saturday, noted how the Golden Knights can corner the goalie market and use those assets as trade bait.

"Vegas doesn't need 10," said Chayka after making a proactive move to free up the Coyotes' protected list by trading veteran goalie Mike Smith to Calgary.

Chayka was exaggerating, but only slightly. The Golden Knight can't select 10 goalies because they're required to use up 26 of their 30 picks in filling 14 forwards, nine defencemen and three goalie spots.

The start of the expansion draft process means a trading freeze is in place through Thursday morning for the 30 other teams.

That doesn't mean the other GMs can't talk.

Said Chayka: "I think the league will kind of wait and see how the exposure lists comes out ... then hopefully re-engage and see if we can make a deal that makes our team better."

Below are the lists for the seven Canadian clubs. Click to view the Western Conference protection lists and the Eastern Conference protection lists for the American teams.

CALGARY FLAMES



Available

Brandon Bollig (F)

Lance Bouma (F)

Troy Brouwer (F)

Alex Chiasson (F)

Freddie Hamilton (F)

Emile Poirier (F)

Hunter Shinkaruk (F)

Matt Stajan (F)

Kris Versteeg (F)

Linden Vey (F)

Matt Bartkowski (D)

Ryan Culkin (D)

Deryk Engelland (D)

Michael Kostka (D)

Brett Kulak (D)

Ladislav Smid (D)

Michael Stone (D)

Dennis Wideman (D)

Tyler Wotherspoon (D)

Brian Elliott (G)

Tom McCollum (G)



Protected

Mikael Backlund (F)

Sam Bennett (F)

Micheal Ferland (F)

Michael Frolik (F)

Johnny Gaudreau (F)

Curtis Lazar (F)

Sean Monahan (F)

T.J. Brodie (D)

Mark Giordano (D)

Dougie Hamilton (D)

Mike Smith (G)

EDMONTON OILERS



Available

David Desharnais (F)

Justin Fontaine (F)

Matt Hendricks (F)

Roman Horak (F)

Jujhar Khaira (F)

Anton Lander (F)

Iiro Pakarinen (F)

Tyler Pitlick (F)

Zach Pochiro (F)

Benoit Pouliot (F)

Henrik Samuelsson (F)

Bogdan Yakimov (F)

Mark Fayne (D)

Andrew Ference (D)

Mark Fraser (D)

Eric Gryba (D)

David Musil (D)

Jordan Oesterle (D)

Griffin Reinhart (D)

Kris Russell (D)

Dillon Simpson (D)

Laurent Brossoit (G)

Jonas Gustavsson (G)



Protected

Leon Draisaitl (F)

Jordan Eberle (F)

Zack Kassian (F)

Mark Letestu (F)

Milan Lucic (F)

Patrick Maroon (F)

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (F)

Oscar Klefbom (D)

Adam Larsson (D)

Andrej Sekera (D)

Cam Talbot (G)



MONTREAL CANADIENS



Available

Daniel Carr (F)

Connor Crisp (F)

Jacob De La Rose (F)

Bobby Farnham (F)

Brian Flynn (F)

Max Friberg (F)

Charles Hudon (F)

Dwight King (F)

Stefan Matteau (F)

Torrey Mitchell (F)

Joonas Nattinen (F)

Steve Ott (F)

Tomas Plekanec (F)

Alexander Radulov (F)

Chris Terry (F)

Brandon Davidson (D)

Alexei Emelin (D)

Keegan Lowe (D)

Andrei Markov (D)

Nikita Nesterov (D)

Zach Redmond (D)

Dalton Thrower (D)

Al Montoya (G)



Protected

Paul Byron (F)

Phillip Danault (F)

Jonathan Drouin (F)

Alex Galchenyuk (F)

Brendan Gallagher (F)

Max Pacioretty (F)

Andrew Shaw (F)

Jordie Benn (D)

Jeff Petry (D)

Shea Weber (D)

Carey Price (G)



OTTAWA SENATORS



Available

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)



Protected

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)



TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS



Available

Brian Boyle (F)

Eric Fehr (F)

Colin Greening (F)

Seth Griffith (F)

Teemu Hartikainen (F)

Brooks Laich (F)

Brendan Leipsic (F)

Joffrey Lupul (F)

Milan Michalek (F)

Kerby Rychel (F)

Ben Smith (F)

Andrew Campbell (D)

Matt Hunwick (D)

Alexey Marchenko (D)

Martin Marincin (D)

Steve Oleksy (D)

Roman Polak (D)

Antoine Bibeau (G)

Curtis McElhinney (G)

Garret Sparks (G)



Protected

Tyler Bozak (F)

Connor Brown (F)

Nazem Kadri (F)

Leo Komarov (F)

Josh Leivo (F)

Matt Martin (F)

James van Riemsdyk (F)

Connor Carrick (D)

Jake Gardiner (D)

Morgan Rielly (D)

Frederik Andersen (G)



VANCOUVER CANUCKS



Available

Reid Boucher (F)

Michael Chaput (F)

Joseph Cramarossa (F)

Derek Dorsett (F)

Brendan Gaunce (F)

Alexandre Grenier (F)

Jayson Megna (F)

Borna Rendulic (F)

Anton Rodin (F)

Drew Shore (F)

Jack Skille (F)

Michael Zalewski (F)

Alex Biega (D)

Philip Larsen (D)

Tom Nilsson (D)

Andrey Pedan (D)

Luca Sbisa (D)

Richard Bachman (G)

Ryan Miller (G)



Protected

Sven Baertschi (F)

Loui Eriksson (F)

Markus Granlund (F)

Bo Horvat (F)

Daniel Sedin (F)

Henrik Sedin (F)

Brandon Sutter (F)

Alexander Edler (D)

Erik Gudbranson (D)

Christopher Tanev (D)

Jacob Markstrom (G)



WINNIPEG JETS



Available

Marko Dano (F)

Quinton Howden (F)

Scott Kosmachuk (F)

Tomas Kubalik (F)

JC Lipon (F)

Shawn Matthias (F)

Ryan Olsen (F)

Anthony Peluso (F)

Chris Thorburn (F)

Ben Chiarot (D)

Toby Enstrom (D)

Brenden Kichton (D)

Julian Melchiori (D)

Paul Postma (D)

Brian Strait (D)

Mark Stuart (D)

Michael Hutchinson (G)

Ondrej Pavelec (G)



Protected

Joel Armia (F)

Andrew Copp (F)

Bryan Little (F)

Adam Lowry (F)

Mathieu Perreault (F)

Mark Scheifele (F)

Blake Wheeler (F)

Dustin Byfuglien (D)

Tyler Myers (D)

Jacob Trouba (D)

Connor Hellebuyck (G)