Potential roster for Seattle expansion team revealed!

In a press conference at the Board of Governors meetings that took place a few weeks ago, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the arrival of the league’s 32nd team in Seattle. Although Seattle will become the league’s 32nd team in 2021-22, the franchise has no official name or no players signed to make a roster come together. 

However, hockey experts are having fun predicting what the expansion draft would look like, and finally offering a sneak peek at the potential roster of the newest team in the NHL. Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic established some rules and reminded us of important details to the potential mock draft. Here they are as he wrote them down in his latest column: 

"One, I follow the expansion draft criteria established by the NHL for Seattle, which is identical to the terms set for Vegas.

Two, selections were made below from the protected lists filed by colleagues in every NHL city, who crunched the roster numbers and came up with their best guesses as to what the teams they cover may end up doing. Separately, I’d done my own protected lists for each team and they didn’t necessarily correspond – which is what you’d probably expect at this early stage in a hypothetical exercise. But hey, if Brent Burns and PK Subban and Brandon Montour are available, who am I to say no – even though I may say no to Burns because I’d rather take Evander Kane.

Three, Vegas selected three players they had zero interest in actually retaining – Connor Brickley from Carolina, Chris Thorburn from Winnipeg and JF Berube from the Islanders. All were gone nine days after the expansion draft selections were announced. We’re guessing that for some teams – Ottawa notably comes to mind here – Seattle’s selection will be someone they don’t necessarily intend to keep, a pending UFA that they can simply walk away from."

Duhatschek also got some input from Golden Knights general manager George McPhee and here is what he is expected the roster for Seattle to be: 

Three of Duhatschek's colleagues from The Athletic, Scott Burnside, Craig Custance and Jonathan Willis also played the game and offered their own vision of what the roster for Seattle could be. All four insiders agree that Nashville Predators' P.K. Subban will be drafted by the 32nd team. 

What do you think of this roster?