Unfortunately, expansion drafts blow unless you’re doing the drafting. We have to lose a player and can’t protect everyone. DA would have likely been grabbed as Kovalchuk wishes to not play anywhere except Seattle and as a player, that’s fine and he’s allowed to express that and those rights.
So here, we shed some cap and roster space, and also get something for Palazzo instead of losing him for nothing.
I know he’ll do good thing in NYA and happy to send him to a good team.