Just out of curiosity, does anybody know (actually KNOW) what the penalty is for failing to present the requisite number of "qualifying" players for the expansion draft?

For example, right now Arizona has only 3 defensemen (OEL, Chychrun and Capobianco) who are not on expiring contracts. What would happen if they announced that they intended to protect all three?

I'm interested to know what the coercive factor is here.

I would bet the NHL hasn't named a punishment because it would be situation-specific and there's no point in listing the punishment for each and every unique situation that could occur.

I don't think there is a penalty, because it's mandatory to expose a certain number of players that meet requirements whether you want to or not.

The work arounds for it aren't hard: trade for someone like Kulak, sign someone like Yannick Weber to a 2 year league min deal and play him enough games to meet the requirements, or play some RFA you already have the required number of games. Heck there might even be someone who hits waivers that can be claimed that will fill the requirements.

Okay, it's mandatory, but what happens if you don't?

Look at the hoops teams jumped though last expansion draft to protect players they had to expose via trades (bribes). Way too much money is on the line for each team to not follow the rules.

I don’t think there’s a punishment, you just have to listen to their rules. Not negotiable. It’s like the salary cap “Listen Gary, I know you have this rule about much money we can spend but can you kindly f*ck off, we’re putting McDavid, Matthews, Marner, Pietrangelo, Herman and Price on our team and anybody else who wants to come can. I hope you understand.”
Gary: “that’s fine, we’ll just leave your team off the schedule, you don’t have to play in the NHL anymore. Good talk”

Yeah, that's the conclusion I'm coming to.

The league would just say....make your "protection" list. If it isn't valid, we will make in for you, in case where you don't enough eligible Dman....the League will draw of name out of the hat for out of the three that are eligible to be drafted, and that player will be deemed eligible for selection by Seattle

This is AZ. The name drawn from the hat would be Chychrun.