Bruins Beat: Upcoming Expansion

Hello boys and girls, welcome back to another Bruins Beat blog post. Today is once again going to be a little off topic as there is not much to talk about in terms of the Bruins right now as they have played, and lost, one game since my last post. So instead I'm going to talk a little about a subject that is rapidly becoming more and more relevant which is the NHL expanding to new markets.
This past week many of the NHL owners met in Florida to discuss present and future happenings with the league and its teams. One of the more tentative topics that was discussed during this meeting was the possibility of the NHL expanding to one or two new cities in North America. This past year, two cities, Las Vegas and Quebec City,  completed the three stage process which allowed them to be considered for an NHL team. This included putting down a large non-refundable deposit as well as taking in a minimum of 10,000 season ticket pre-orders in order to gauge interest that city would have in accepting an NHL franchise. Although both cities completed the process, the league is much more in favor of expanding only to Las Vegas or another United States city due to the fact that the Canadian dollar is in the toilet. This means that most likely only Las Vegas will be getting a team in the next year or so and another team will follow suit in the upcoming few years after that. My bets are on the fact that Seattle will get a team before Quebec City does because the NHL has expressed interest in expanding there but have been blocked multiple times by the owners of the largest indoor arena in Seattle who do not want to accept any new sports into the area that is not basketball. regardless, this means that an expansion draft will most likely be coming up in the next two years which brings about expansion draft and protection list guidelines, the baselines of which were set during the owners meetings this past week. The only two major rules set so far is that either one or two players will be chosen from each team and each team is allowed to protect either 7 forwards, 3 defense man and 1 goalie or 8 skaters and 2 goalies. Also, all players on their second or fewer year of a professional contract will be automatically protected. That leaves the Bruins with a big question coming up which is who stays and who gets hung out to dry and possibly snatched up. Personally if I had to choose right now, assuming the draft was happening this off season, I would protect Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci, Beleskey, Pastrnak, Loui (if he re-signs) Spooner, Chara, Krug, McQuiad and Tuukka. Key players that were left off this list who could be picked up in the expansion draft would be Seidneberg, Griffith, Kokolachev, Malcolm Subban and Colin and Kevan Miller. I would pray that some of these players we could move before this draft happens but if not I would not be sad to see this guys go other than Subban and Colin Miller who may have real potential to be studs in the league within 10 years time.