The
2016–17 NHL season saw the entrance of a 31st team to the league, the
Vegas Golden Knights. While the team does not begin play until the
2017–18 NHL season, the team was active and able to make trades with the other 30 teams and sign free agents starting March 1, 2017. In order to create a roster, an Expansion Draft was held June 21, 2017. Vegas was required to select one player from each of the existing teams, for a total of 30 players selected. At least 20 of the players selected had to be on contracted for the 2017–18 NHL season and Vegas had to take a minimum of number of player at each position. Each of the thirty other teams were allowed to protect up to 11 players, but also had to expose a minimum number of players with NHL experience for Vegas to select at each position. Teams were required to protect players with No-Movement Clauses (or the player must waive it); all first- and second-year professionals, as well as all unsigned draft choices, and players determined to have career threatening injuries were exempt from selection and were not counted toward their teams' protection limits. On June 17, 2017, a waiver and trade freeze, as well as moratorium on signing players to new contracts went into effect for all teams except for Vegas, and each team had to submit their expansion protection lists. Vegas had from June 18–21 to negotiate with all exposed free agents; if Vegas came to terms with a player in this time, that player counted as their previous team's expansion selection and Vegas was not able to select another player from that team. On June 21, 2017, Vegas' final roster was submitted, Any players picked by Vegas cannot be traded back to their former team before January 1, 2018, nor can they have their contracts bought out by Vegas until after the completion of the 2017–18 season. ==See also==