With the 2017 Expansion Draft currently slated to be the next major event on the New York Rangers’ calendar, the general expectations around what Jeff Gorton will do are cut and dry. Aside from the occasional ludicrous call to leave one of the team’s star forwards exposed in the name of cap space (which is a flawed concept even at its roots), the hockey world expects the Rangers to make the predictable decisions. Those would be as follows:
Protected: Rick Nash, Derek Stepan, Chris Kreider, Mats Zuccarello, J.T. Miller, Mika Zibanejad, Kevin Hayes, Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, and Henrik Lundqvist.