Mock Expansion Draft – Protected Players – Washington Capitals

The first step to our mock draft is to establish the list of players that will be available for the Las Vegas franchise to draft. To do this, we decided to have a blogger from each team represent their own franchise and select the players that will be protected from the Mock Expansion Draft available player pool. To see the rules which were followed to protect players, hit this link.

Next up, we have the Washington Capitals. The Capitals are being represented by Adam Stringham from JapersRink.com.

Protected Players

• G – Braden Holtby
• F – Alex Ovechkin
• F – Nicklas Backstrom
• F – T.J. Oshie
• F – Marcus Johansson
• F – Jay Beagle
• F – Justin Williams
• F – Evgeny Kuznetsov
• F – Tom Wilson
• F – Andre Burakovsky
• D – Matt Niskanen
• D – John Carlson
• D – Karl Alzner
• D – Dmitry Orlov
• D – Nate Schmidt

Analysis from JapersRink.com:

The Capitals have elected to protect 1 goaltender, 5 defenseman, and 9 forwards for the SinBin.vegas Mock Expansion Draft. The team has made a conscious effort to retain their younger/skilled players at the expense of some valuable veteran leadership. Sure, Brooks Orpik’s foot speed might not be what it used to be… but wouldn’t he be a great first captain for some brand new organization?

In all seriousness Philipp Grubauer is the player that was the hardest to leave unprotected but in the end it was the only logical choice. The Capitals have strong organizational goaltending depth in Vitek Vanecek (2nd Round, 2014) and Ilya Samsonov (1st Round, 2015).

The entire list of unprotected players that will be available for Team Lane and Team Pothier to select from can be found here.

To see more team explanations just like this one, check out The Sin Bin Mock Expansion Draft Landing Page.