<P> Las Vegas was approved for the 2017--18 NHL season on June 22, 2016; at the same time the Quebec City bid was deferred, largely because of concerns over the Canadian dollar's value and the geographic balance of the league's conferences . </P> <P> The initial proposal of the rules for the draft were decided upon by the NHL in March 2016 . They allowed each team to either protect seven forwards, three defencemen, and one goaltender or, one goaltender and eight skaters regardless of position . Because the NHL wanted to ensure the competitive viability of any new teams, the number of protected players allowed was lower than in the 2000 NHL Expansion Draft which populated the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets, when each team could protect nine forwards, five defencemen, and one goalie, or two goalies, three defencemen, and seven forwards . Under these rules, each of the 30 teams would lose one top - four defencemen or third - line forward per number of new teams . Only players with more than two years of professional experience--NHL or AHL as defined in the collective bargaining agreement--were included in the draft . </P> <P> Teams had to submit their list of protected players by June 17, 2017, and they had to expose at least two forwards and one defenceman that had played at least 40 games in the 2016--17 season or more than 70 games in the 2015--16 and 2016--17 seasons combined and had to still be contracted for the 2017--18 season . The exposed goaltender had to either be under contract for the 2017--18 season or became a Restricted free agent in 2017 . At least twenty of the thirty players selected by Vegas had to be under contract for the 2017--18 season, and they were required to select a minimum of fourteen forwards, nine defencemen and three goaltenders . Vegas was granted a 48 - hour window prior to the draft to sign any pending free agent (RFA or UFA, one per team) that was left unprotected . If a team lost a player to Vegas during this signing window they did not have a player selected from their roster during this draft . </P> <P> Teams were required to protect any contracted players with no move clauses (NMCs) with one of the team's slots for protected players, unless the contract expired on July 1, 2017, in which case the NMC was considered void for the draft . Players whose NMCs had limited no trade clauses had to still be protected, and any players with NMCs were able to waive the clause and become eligible for the expansion draft . </P>

How many rounds is the nhl expansion draft