BURKE: Interesting Prospects Whose Rights Expire on June 1st with the Team That Drafted Them

The group of players available in the NHL Entry Draft is about to get just a little bit larger.

As of June 1st, several players once drafted will no longer have their rights held by the team that selected them, as a result of that team’s decision to withhold an entry-level contract. Others will forego re-entering the draft and will become unrestricted free agents.

Thanks to our friends over at CapFriendly, we have an idea of precisely which players will get thrown back into the system this Saturday.

Now, the obvious qualifier here is that these players — who were extreme long shots to begin with — haven’t shown enough progress to warrant an entry-level contract. Teams have 50 contract spots available to them, and somehow these players didn’t even meet the baseline to crack that group. Whic