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Teams with the toughest expansion protection list choices

The Avalanche have a tough call in whether to include Calvin Pickard, left, or Semyon Varlamov on their expansion protection list. Which other teams are facing difficult decisions? AP Photo/David Zalubowski

The NHL's newest team, the Vegas Golden Knights, get their first look at each team's list of protected players on June 17 and have until June 21 to select their initial roster.

In the case of certain teams, the protection list can already be guessed, but there are at least 10 teams with some awfully difficult decisions to make in the next two-plus weeks.

To be clear, this isn't to argue that the other 20 teams don't have good players to lose, but simply that the choice of which of them to expose isn't particularly difficult. For instance, the Chicago Blackhawks have almost no choice but to lose Trevor van Riemsdyk, so GM Stan Bowman doesn't have any particularly difficult choices to make while composing his protection list.

Here's a look at 10 NHL GMs who do: