Seven forward you protect Jake Guentzel, dominik Kahun, Evegeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Bryan rust, Patrick Hörnqvist, Pontus Aberg
Defensemen you protect. Brian Dumoulin, Marcus Pettersson and Kris Letang
Goalie is Matt Murray.
And you over 17 million next year with Murray, Kahun, Del Zotto and McCann as ur must resign free agents.

Current NHL teams can protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie, or eight skaters (forwards/defensemen) and one goalie, under the following conditions.

* All players with no movement clauses at the time of the draft, and who decline to waive those clauses, must be protected and will be counted toward their team's applicable protection limits.

* All first- and second-year NHL players, and all unsigned draft choices, will be exempt from selection (and will not be counted toward protection limits.

In addition, all NHL teams must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the draft:

* One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played in at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.

* Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2021-22 and b) played at least 40 NHL games the prior season or played in at least 70 NHL games in the prior two seasons.

* One goalie who is under contract in 2021-22 or will be a restricted free agent at the end of his current contract immediately prior to 2021-22. If a team elects to make a restricted free agent goalie available to meet this requirement, that goalie must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the team's protected list.

* Players with potential career-ending injuries who have missed more than the previous 60 consecutive games (or who otherwise have been confirmed to have a career-threatening injury) may not be used to satisfy a team's player exposure requirements unless approval is received from the NHL. Such players also may be deemed exempt from selection.

The seven forwards and 3 D I’d protect are Guentzel, Crosby, Malkin, McCann, Bjugstad, Galchenyuk, Kahun, Letang, Dumo, and Pettersson. Murray is obviously the goalie you protect and you more than likely strike a deal with Seattle to reassure that they take Hornqvist’s cap hit off their hands.

Exactly what I would do

It’s such a quick fix if they somehow trade JJ...Gudbranson’s contract would be up at the time of expansion and taking Hornqvist off the team gives them around $9.5M to work with in a time where the cap will most likely be between 88 and 90M

They won’t re-sign Alex G. So he won’t count towards expansion draft because he’s considered a unrestricted free agent so they don’t have to protect him

Trade JJ, Guddy/a Guddy replacement signs for 2 mil at most, Hornqvist contract is gone, Rust is also probably (unfortunately) gone, almost 15 mil, and hopefully we'll have some prospects coming up to fill out the depth roles (Pavlychev for 4C, Almari and Addison for the bottom pair, Almeida possibly on Sid's wing, Legare Hallander and Poulin filling out middle 6 roles...)

With all that space they can prob go for a big FA during that offseason. Also you think almari will win a spot over PO Joseph?

Yes, I don't see POJ ever really making the NHL full time, he wasn't that impressive offensively, in the Q where scoring is up and defensemen don't generally play defense, and he's TINY, 6'2'' (not small) but he's only like 162 lbs, ik size isn't a huge factor, but you have to have some muscle, I also heard, idk how legit this is, but he has some sort of issue where he really gain weight

people look at this the wrong way.
Why protect Letang, he'd be 34 years old. You want him, go ahead and take his 7+ million salary at 34.
Malkin will be 35, you want his 9 million salary, he's yours.

You protect Guentzel,, Crosby, McCann, Kahun, Blueger, Rust,
On defense you take Pettersson and Dumo.
You don't need to cut a deal, because the window is already closed. Have at it. The younger players won't be touchable and any of those pieces above that are any good will be protected.
Everyone else will be aged out with a massive salary. The only reason you tag Crosby is he's the face of the team and NHL.

You have to protect NMC. NTC also.