CONFIRMED: Sharks’ Protected List

The NHL will make expansion draft protected lists public today.

San Jose Hockey Now can confirm the San Jose Sharks’ protected list early — and it’s just what we reported yesterday.

The San Jose Sharks will protect Logan Couture, Evander Kane, Tomas Hertl, Kevin Labanc, Timo Meier, Rudolfs Balcers, and Jonathan Dahlen up front.

On the back-end, they will protect Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Newly-acquired Adin Hill will also be protected.

That means the Seattle Kraken can choose from forwards Dylan Gambrell, Matt Nieto, Jayden Halbgewachs, Ryan Donato, Alex True, Marcus Sorensen, Maxim Letunov, Patrick Marleau, or Kurtis Gabriel. They can also select defensemen Radim Simek, Christian Jaros, Jake Middleton, Nicholas Meloche, or Greg Pateryn, or goalie Martin Jones.

The San Jose Sharks will lose one of these players to the Kraken. Who will it be? We’ll find out at Wednesday’s expansion draft.

There will be plenty of intrigue then. While San Jose may not have exposed the most exciting of players, there should be no shortage of stars available to Seattle. Carey Price, Gabriel Landeskog, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Max Domi are among the marquee names that the Kraken may be able to choose from.