MLS Expansion Draft 2011: Flurry Of Activity Expected As Protected List Deadline Passes

The Montreal Impact will have no shortage of quality players from which to choose when Wednesday’s 2012 MLS Expansion Draft is held at 2 p.m. Eastern via conference call. Among the available players will be seven Designated Players, the league’s all-time leading scorer and any number of players who earned significant roles with their teams last year.

Here are some of the more surprising players to be left unprotected:

Luckily for the Timbers, it doesn’t look they really need to put much thought into their protected list. That’s because they have reportedly worked out a deal with the Impact that guarantees nobody from the Timbers will be chosen. Well isn’t that just peachy.

Protected list: Alston, Feilhaber, Joseph, Lekic, McCarthy, Nyassi, Reis, Shuttleworth, Soares, Tierney, Zerka. Automatically protected: Fagundez.

Unprotected: Barnes, Boggs, Caraglio, Cochrane, Coria, Dube, Guy, Kinne, Koger, Loewy, Mansally, Murray, Phelan, Schilawski, Sousa.

The most notable player not to be protected was Freddy Adu, who was brought in at no small expense. It’s certainly possibly that Nowak is simply gambling on the fact that Adu is too highly paid to attract much attention from the Impact. But he has considerably more upside than someone like Mondragon, whose value to the Impact is almos nil.

As expected, Danny Mwanga graduated from Generation adidas and was protected.

Protected list: Avila, Dunfield, Eckersley, Frei, Frings, Harden, Iro, Johnson, Kocic, Koevermans, Plata. Automatically protected: Cordon, Henry, Lindsay, Makubuya, Morgan, Stinson.

Unprotected: Borman, Bouchiba, Cann, Davies, de Guzman, Gold, Griffit, Marosevic, Martina, Omphroy, Soolsma, Sturgis, Viator, Williams, Yourasskowsky, Zavarise.

Protected list: Chiumiento, Demerit, Harris, Harvey, Hassli, Gerson, Tan, Mitchell, Rochat, Salinas, Sanvezzo. Automatically protected: Nanchoff, Salgado, Davies, Khalfan, Sylvestre, Teibert.

Unprotected: Boxall, Brovsky, Cannon, Duckett, Janicki, Jarju, Leathers, Morfaw, Nolly, Thorrington, Vagenas.

Automatically Protected: David Armstrong (Homegrown), Josh Janniere (Homegrown)

Can you see anyone on this list getting picked? Most of those players didn’t even take the field in a league game for the Red Bulls, and none of them were consistently decent.

Automatically Protected: Jack McBean (Homegrown)

Protected list: Arnaud, Besler, Bunbury, Collin, Espinoza, Kamara, Myers, Nielsen, Santos, Sapong, Zusi. Homegrown Players: Ellis, Kempin.

Unprotected: Aiyegbusi, Bravo, Cyrus, Diop, Jeferson Harrington, Kronberg, Lorenz, Olum, Peterson, Rocastle, Saad, Sassano, Sinovic, Stojcev, Thomas, Warzycha.

Of the surprised - if you want to call them that - would be seeing guys like Designated Player Andres Mendoza unprotected by the Crew. Also, striker Tommy Heinemann was left exposed, someone the Crew used frequently all season long.

Other than that the Crew had a lot of players that weren’t totally vital going forward that had to be protected. A lot of higher contracts that you’d expect to be exposed going against some younger guys that are cheap.

Protected list: Alonso; Evans; Fernandez; Friberg; Hurtado; Montero; Neagle; Ochoa; Parke; Rosales; Zakuani.

Unprotected: Boss; Carrasco; Estrada; Ford; Fucito; Gonzalez; Graham; Ianni; Jaqua; Levesque; Meredith; Montano; Noonan; Riley; Sanyang; Scott; Seamon; Wahl; White.

Michael Lahoud, Zarek Valentin and Blair Gavin are the players who jump out on the available list. All came into the league as hot prospects and while they haven’t quite lived up to it yet, all are inexpensive Americans who certainly have talent. Chivas are probably 50-50 at most to have a player picked up by the Montreal Impact.

The other bit of news from the list is that keeper Josh Lambo has graduated from the Generation adidas program.

Any of those four players could start for many MLS teams and speaks to the depth of RSL’s team. Of those players, Paulo Jr. is the probably the most affordable, as he made just $42,000 last year. His season was cut short by injury though and he only ended up playing 468 MLS minutes this year. He did score two goals and have four assists in that limited time.

There is a good chance that Pore could still end up with the Impact, as he saw little playing time during the 2011 season with the Timbers. Pore was originally expected to play a larger role with Portland after he was one of their first MLS signings. Pore had been one of the Timbers’ top players during their final two seasons in the second division, and had scored 25 goals in 52 games.

For more insight and analysis of this trade, be sure to check out Timbers blog Stumptown Footy.

During his first season in Kansas City, Smith was one of the league’s top newcomers. The Englishman had three goals and seven assists. He had offseason knee surgery, though, and appeared in only six matches in 2012 before leaving the team for family reasons. Smith’s tenure in MLS was largely believed to be over.

But Chivas USA apparently had enough faith that he’d come back to trade first- and third-round picks in this year’s supplemental draft. Essentially, those are the equivalent of third- and fifth-round SuperDraft picks.