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The lists were put down, the players informed, and the Colorado Avalanche made choices. According to Peter Baugh of The Athletic, the protection list for the Avalanche is:
Nathan Mackinnon
Mikko Rantanen
André Bourakovsky
Nazem kadri
Tyson jost
Logan o’connor
Valery nichuskin
Cale Makar (FRG)
Devon toews
Sam Girard
Philipp Grubauer (UFA)
This leaves JT Compher, Jonas Donskoi, Jacob MacDonald, Erik Johnson, Brandon Saad (UFA) and more specifically Grabriel Landeskog (UFA) at the disposal of the Seattle Kraken.
This is a bold move by Sakic. It could also be very smart, with negotiations with Landeskog not going as smoothly as expected. This will either prove the Colorado side are right or the Landeskogs side is right in their rumored asking price. Either way, it’s disappointing to get this far for the Avalanche captain.
Protecting Logan O’Connor from Donskoi and Compher is a big hit. They have a cap of $ 3.9 million and $ 3.5 million, respectively. They moved Ryan Graves and his $ 3.1million cap to New Jersey earlier this week and are hoping Seattle will pull another over $ 3million contract from the books in a matter of days.
Another surprise is that the Avalanche used their only point of goalie protection on Philipp Grubauer. This indicates that the team believe they have a realistic chance of re-signing their starting goalie before he hits the open market on July 28.
Grubauer is one of only two pending UFAs (Linus Ullmark in Buffalo being the other) that have been protected in the expansion project.
With just days until the Seattle Kraken build their squad via the expansion draft, a number of questions remain – both in the league and with the Avs in particular.
One thing’s for sure: the time to start really wondering about a future without Landeskog in an Avalanche sweater becomes very real.
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