I think the one natural solution would be to have an age exemption in place. Perhaps lower than then waiver draft one - say 22. This would allow teams to not have to worry about some of their top prospects. If you were allowed to protect say 5 blueliners, 10 forwards and 2 goalies. Or 1 goalie and an extra skater AND any player 22 or under was exempt I think most teams woudl be able to protect their prize assets.
As an example here's what the Wild would possible do.
Protected forwards (10) : Mark Bell, David Legwand, Brendan Morrow, Dave Scatchard, Daniel Sedin, Paul Kariya, Scott Hartnell, Raffi Torres, Ben Clymer, Trevor Letowski.
Protected D-men (5): Dmitri Kalinin, Chris Phillips, Filip Kub, Nik Kronwall, Andrew Ference.
Goalie: Tomoas Vokon.
Extra skater since only protecting 1 goalie: Andrew Alberts
Key exemptions for age: Jason Spezza and other prospects
This would leave the likes of Keith Carney (71 OVR but old as Cheese), and Mattias Timander on D open for selection. Up front I would possibly lose guys like Shane Willis. No one special.
Looking at this now that doesn't even seem like enough choice. If we took it down to 9 forwards and 5 D then a guy like Trevor Letowski comes open from my team. A better pick probably for an expansion club.
Anyhoo I just did this to kinda play around with the scenario. Seems to me that assuming there is an age restriction (which I think there would be), most teams wouldn't lose key assets. Depth players and marginal prospects mainly.
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