Seattle Expansion Draft II: Who do the Florida Panthers keep?

The Florida Panthers, and the rest of the NHL (save for the Vegas Golden Knights), have to provide their protected list for the Seattle Kraken’s expansion draft by Saturday afternoon.

On Thursday, the Panthers not only bought out the remainder of Keith Yandle’s contract but extended both Anthony Duclair and Gus Forsling.

By doing that, general manager Bill Zito not only took care of some pressing offseason business, but offered some clarity as to how the Panthers are thinking going into the expansion draft.

Certainly there could be some unknown, hidden moves to come.

For know, however, we will take Thursday’s moves on the surface.

The big thing, when it comes to the Panthers protected list, is the report that pending free agent goalie Chris Driedger will be signing with the Kraken.

That is big. If it goes down, and the Kraken can start talking “officially” with Driedger at 10:01 a.m. on Sunday, he would be the player Florida loses.

But, if that doesn’t happen and the Kraken decide to take Carey Price or something, the protection list would mean something other than for public relations.

For now, we will look at who we think the Panthers had on their protection list Saturday evening.