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Today NWSL teams released their protected lists, which will determine which players are available to the Orlando Pride in their expansion draft next Monday. As was strongly hinted in pre-trade rumors, the Seattle Reign left Meghan Klingenberg unprotected after trading for her earlier in the day.
In a separate trade, the Pride dealt the 'first pick in the 2015 Expansion Draft' as part of the larger deal to acquire Alex Morgan and the expectation is that that player will be Klingenberg. One of the expansion draft rules is that a team that loses a US-allocated player can't lose any others, so once the US national team fullback is taken, Seattle would be otherwise left intact.
That deal makes Seattle's 9-player protected list moot, but for posterity here it is:
Lauren Barnes
Rachel Corsie
Jessica Fishlock
Kendall Fletcher
Megan Rapinoe (USA)
Hope Solo (USA)
With Cox's retirement, that's basically the usual starting lineup minus Merritt Mathias.
Elsewhere in the league there were some surprises. Washington left both Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris exposed, though the Pride are almost certain to take the hometown favorite Harris. Portland exposed England national team star Lianne Sanderson and the deep defending champions FCKC had to leave a number of talented players exposed, including Heather O'Reilly, Amy LePeilbet, and, Jen Buczkowski.
The expansion draft will not be conducted publicly, but the results will be released at noon Eastern on November 2.