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The votes are in and our list is complete.

We've made some tough decisions and some easy ones. We've angered some people, but hey, that's part of the business. The following players are eligible to be plucked away from the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 SB Nation Mock NHL Expansion Draft:

G: Brian Boucher

D: Matt Walker, Sean O`Donnell, Oskars Bartulis

F: Jody Shelley, Dan Carcillo, Darroll Powe, Blair Betts, Greg Moore

The draft will take place today, on Thursday, and the results will be announced next Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday. Gabe Desjardins of Behind The Net is running the new Winnipeg franchise, while James Mirtle of The Globe & Mail is running the new Quebec franchise.

After the jump, let's look at which Flyers players were protected and which players were exempt from this process.

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Lisa Hillary's farewell at CSN DC was slightly emotional. (And that dude does NOT like Philly.)

Recall our story from the other night, where we shared the news that Lisa Hillary would be leaving CSN Washington to cover the Flyers at CSN Philly. We had a chance to speak with Hillary on Wednesday afternoon about a ton of different things, from her career thus far to her decision to come to Philly to her dislike of Toronto. Oh, and the rat. We talked about the rat.

On her career before CSN Washington:

Lisa Hillary: I did news and I was the Assistant PR Director for the Ottawa Senators. I did a bunch of different things before I actually got into sports broadcasting. When I left TSN I went I actually went back to my home town of Ottawa. I wasn't a big fan of Toronto to be honest with you. It's kind of an impersonal city. It was sort of like a mini New York. I wasn't a huge fan, not to mention, you know, my schedule didn't allow me to have much of a life.

On moving to the United States and deciding to cover the Capitals:

LH: [Leaving TSN] was a personal decision. It had nothing to do with the things I did there. Working in Calgary, first of all, was fantastic. Then they promoted me to SportsCentre anchoring in Toronto, which was great. But in hindsight, I love reporting and were I to do it again I probably would've stayed in Calgary. It's a great city.

Eventually, I just got the itch to get back into sports again. With Alex Ovechkin getting the drafted, you knew he was going to be such a huge star, so when the opportunity to come here to Washington to cover who was, to me, the best player in the world -- and I still believe he is -- you know, it was a no brainer.

That's why I decided to come and it's been a wonderful three years.

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We have to protect one goalie in the Mock Expansion Draft. Don't everybody go and jump up all at once, now.

Players who have played less than 50 games in the NHL are exempt and automatically protected, so guys like Sergei Bobrovsky, Nicola Riopel and Johan Backlund are automatically protected.

Basically, this exercise is simple: who do you want, Michael Leighton or Brian Boucher?

Compare them completely and totally. I'm not going to sit here and list the different accolades because I don't want to editorialize and sway anybody in any particular direction (although, as Geoff has learned, that doesn't work that well), but you've probably made up your mind already anyway. You have a favorite. Pick him.

Michael Leighton

#49 / Goalie / Philadelphia Flyers

Height: 6-3

Weight: 186

Born: May 19, 1981

Brian Boucher

#33 / Goalie / Philadelphia Flyers

Height: 6-2

Weight: 200

Born: Jan 02, 1977

Pick a goalie to keep: Brian Boucher or Michael Leighton? (It's not like the other is getting taken in the draft anyway.)

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The Wolf will attack if you don't vote for him.

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The votes are in and the polls are closed.  Distinguished BSH members have rejected my argument and sided with Ben, protecting Ian Laperriere and Scott Hartnell.  That's fine, it's tough to break the habit of being snuggled up against the cap.  We'd be lost without that problem.  Just like if the Flyers found a franchise goalie: we wouldn't know what to do.

So with that, the honorable Messrs. Mirtle and Desjardins will be choosing from Darroll Powe, Blair Betts (surely gone), Greg Moore, Jody Shelley, and Dan Carcillo.

But now it's time to turn to the defense:

Protected: Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen, Matt Carle, and Braydon Coburn

Exempt: Marc-Andre Bourdon, Kevin Marshall, Joonas Lehtivuori, Erik Gustafsson, Tyler Hostetter, and Dan Jancevski

That leaves four players battling for immunity.

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Remember me? Yes? No? Vaguely?

In any event, I'm here today to share with you a conversation I recently had with the more recently visible Geoff Detweiler about which forwards should be protected in the upcoming SB Nation Mock Expansion draft.

After you read our conversation, make your own voice heard in the comments and the poll below.

*****

Ben: I can't believe you want to keep Lappy over Hartnell.

Geoff: If we're going to lose somebody for nothing - as we would in an expansion draft - I want to have a better consolation prize than just "he's old and replaceable."  I want ~$4 million in cap space so we can say, "yeah, that sucks we lost such a talent, but at least we have room to replace him"

Ben: You want to lose the offensive production? Lappy, likeable as he is, is utterly replaceable.

Geoff: Is he?

Ben: Sure. This league is full of grit guys. Plus, he's one concussion away from retirement.

Geoff: Jody Shelley is no Lappy.  Powe is no Lappy. Nodl is no Lappy.

Ben: Nodl is no Flyer. Not yet, anyway

Geoff: Right. But if you're keeping Hartnell over Lappy, why not Lappy over Betts? He's one faceoff away from never being able to lift a hockey stick again.

More of the conversation, with the poll after the jump.

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The SB Nation hockey community is in the process of putting together a mock expansion draft. Last week, at SBNation.com, we polled readers, asking them which cities to which our league should expand. The results? Quebec and Winnipeg.

So over the weekend, when we polled them on team nicknames... well, let's just say people aren't that creative.

The Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets are ready to draft, but first, they need a pool of players to pick from. That's where we come in, sort of. Each team blog at SB Nation is creating a "protected list" of players that cannot be poached away from their team. The remaining players will be available for the two new GM's -- Gabe Desjardins and James Mirtle -- to select.

After the jump, we'll break down a few rules and start the debate.

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Lord R.J. of Umberger.

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Last summer at SB Nation, each team blog matched up with another team blog from the opposite conference in a little series we called Summer Fill. The basic concept: there's nothing else to talk about in the middle of August, so let's learn a little bit about a team that we don't know much about.

We exchanged questions last year with The Copper & Blue, SBN's Edmonton Oilers blog. This year, we've been paired up with The Cannon, SBN's Columbus Blue Jackets blog. How perfect: Geoff gets to talk about Matt Calvert some more.

Mike and Matt over at The Cannon asked us seven questions about our team, and you can head over there to see my responses. Feel free to correct me over in the comments. We had seven questions of our own for them, and they've kindly obliged. Without further adieu...

BSH: The Jackets have a lot of competition in Columbus when it comes to sports, thanks to the presence of Ohio State athletics. But beyond Columbus, and as the only NHL team in the state of Ohio, do the Jackets have a presence in the rest of the state? Do they market themselves in Cincinnati and Toledo and Cleveland and everywhere in between?

The Cannon: That's a good question. The team certainly has a fan presence through the state (I know quite a few people, some of them even season ticket holders, who commute from Cleveland and Cincinnati for games), but their efforts to market the team have been average, at best. Radio coverage of games is fairly hit or miss outside the Columbus Metro area, and the partner stations don't do a very good job of covering Northeastern Ohio (generally considered Penguins territory by the NHL) or the Toledo area, which tends to get lumped in with Detroit. A lot of fans outside of the Columbus area also frequently complain about not being able to get CBJ games on their cable packages because Fox Sports Ohio will often be showing Cleveland Cavaliers games instead.

This is actually something that was brought up at the Season Ticket Holder meetings this summer, and Mike Priest, the team's president, seemed to imply that it's an area they intend to improve. They didn't want to market "at the expense" of some of Ohio's other struggling teams, but I think we will see the team make a greater effort to court fans from around the entire state.

Another way the team could improve their marketing would be to look at partnering with more minor league hockey teams in the state (Columbus hasn't had an in-state affiliate since they broke it off with the ECHL's Dayton Bombers a few years ago), which could be a real possibility next season when the AHL's Lake Erie Monsters come up for a renewal or change with their current affiliation with Colorado. The ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones also just ended a long association with Montreal - and while they have shifted to working with Nashville and Florida, it would be a great move for the Jackets to partner with them as well.

Much more after the jump.

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You might want to learn the name Shane Harper.

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One thing that always interested me was Gabe Desjardins' NHL Equivalencies.  It's really phenomenal work - trying to forecast what a players' production in a different league is equal to in the NHL.  Scott Reynolds from The Copper & Blue has been running a series of great looks at every forward drafted by an NHL club from 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007 which are well worth reading.

Earlier this week, fellow Flyers blog Flyers Faithful ran a story looking at the Flyers prospects and what their NHL Equivalencies would be.  Honestly, it's an idea I wish I had come up with first.  Check that out, especially since it contains history that should put some skeptics in the "lean trust" column.

Instead of looking at what the Flyers' prospects could be expected to produce in the orange and black next year, we're going to look at what they can be expected to produce in Adirondack, since that's where they'll almost certainly be.

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