Happy Monday y'all!

With no news for the month of August, all of the buzz has been about potential expansion and how two teams will be added, potentially Houston and Atlanta. So we went ahead and projected a way too early expansion draft list for teams in the Central Division last Monday. This week we will explore what teams in the Pacific Division could possibly do.

Anaheim Ducks: The Ducks have a number of young players who would be exempt from an expansion draft next summer, but after having to match Leo Carlsson's offersheet from the Flyers, I'm sure they would love to get rid of Frank Vatrano or AJ Greer's contract. Vatrano moving to an expansion team would be great for his fantasy value as he would probably be a top-six winger for one of the new organizations. Here is the Ducks entire list: Leo Carlsson, Troy Terry, Mikael Granlund, Cutter Gauthier, Ryan Poehling, Jeff Malott, Tim Washe, Jackson LaCombe, Pavel Mintyukov, Tristan Luneau, Lukas Dostal.

Calgary Flames: Calgary has a number of their young guys locked up and a few veterans with NMC that would have to be protected, but they have the space to hold onto those players. Leaving a guy like Yegor Sharangovich in hopes that one of the new teams takes his contract off of the Flames' books could be great for the Belarus native. After he moved to Calgary, he set career highs in all of his offensive stats during his first campaign with the Flames and it looks like he might need another change of scenery. Here is Calgary's full list: Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, Martin Pospisil, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, Simon Nemec, Kevin Bahl, Zack Whitecloud, Dustin Wolf.

Edmonton Oilers: The Oilers are in a tricky spot here and things will get awkward. The team currently has nine players with NMC, four of them on defense and five forwards. For the purpose of this exercise, I am waiving Trent Frederic's NMC so they will be compliant with eight skaters and one goalie, but they need one of the defenseman to waive in order for them to protect more than four forwards.  In this simulation, I have them protecting Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jason Dickinson, Evan Bouchard, Jake Walman, Connor Murphy, Mattias Ekholm, and Devon Levi. This obviously leaves guys like Zach Hyman and Vasily Podkolzin free for the taking. Management is doing everything it can to keep McDavid so we will assume Hyman is not going to be sniped. That leaves the former first rounder, Podkolzin, for the taking. The winger is finally starting to feel his groove and find his game so I could see him hitting 25 goals, 50 points in the next two seasons.

Los Angeles Kings: Los Angeles is right on the border of being a playoff team and blowing it up. How they finish the 2026-27 season will determine their protection list. If it goes down the gutter, maybe they leave Kevin Fiala unprotected in hopes that one of the new organization's pick him up (along with that contract)? Most of their prospect pool is depleted now and some players did not develop like the Kings had hoped, but maybe a guy like Alex Turcotte finds new life somewhere else in 2027? Here is their full list: Artemi Panarin, Adrian Kempe, Quinton Byfield, Trevor Moore, Alex Laferriere, Sam Helenius, Kevin Fiala, Brandt Clarke, Mikey Anderson, Drew Doughty, and Anton Forsberg. 

San Jose Sharks: The Sharks are perfectly set up for an expansion draft next summer. Michael Misa, Ivar Stenberg, and Igor Chernyshov are protected by the rules set in place so you will see a lot of veterans with decent contracts on their list. Mike Greir's full list: Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Tyler Toffoli, Collin Graf, Mason Marchment, Alex Wenneberg, Ty Dellandrea, Darnell Nurse, Mike Kesselring, Luca Cagnoni, Yaroslav Askarov

Seattle Kraken: Seattle has to determine if they are moving on from Shane Wright, but that is one decision that will impact this list. Mackie Samoskevich is a young player they acquired from the Panthers earlier this summer and management gave him a very nice three-year deal. He will be protected and given lots of opportunities to produce. The rest of their protections are (boring) players that have been with the Kraken for a while now. That list includes Matty Beniers, Chandler Stephenson, Kaapo Kakko, Bobby McMann, Jordan Eberle, Mackie Samoskevich, Jared McCann, Brandon Montour, Adam Larsson, Ryker Evans, and Joey Daccord. 

Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks are at the start of an organization reset, so pretty much anyone can be fair game off of this team. Maybe management looks at other players around the league and uses one of the expansion teams as a third party to ignite some trade action, but Vancouver could be a catalyst for one of the expansion teams if they are looking for talent today.  The Canucks full list: Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Marco Rossi, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Liam Ohgren, Aatu Raty, Filip Hronek, Tom Willander, Zeev Buium, and Thatcher Demko. 

Vegas Golden Knights: The organization that had the most successful (and fun) expansion draft of all time, the Golden Knights are all business and I doubt we see any shenanigans from them. It would be great to see an expansion team pull off all of those moves again, but every team around the league has learned from them and they won't be fooled again. Kelly McCrimmon will submit their list and that will be that. It will look like this: Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Tomas Hertl, Brett Howden, Ivan Barbashev, Braeden Bowman, William Karlsson, Shea Theodore, Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson, and Carter Hart.

We are less than a month away from training camp, I can't believe we have made it! Sites are opening their fantasy hockey pages and so most of your keeper leagues will start having you submit your own keeper list. Next week is Bubble Keeper Week over at DobberHockey so if you have any questions, submit them to me @LAM1926 on Twitter and I will be sure to answer them in next week's column.

Have a great week!