Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman said Thursday his team's plans for the upcoming Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft are set.

"I could tell you, but I'm not going to," Bowman said at a news conference ahead of Game 1 against the Nashville Predators. "Yeah, we have that figured out. We've spent a lot of time working on that over the course of the year, but there's really no benefit to sort of broadcasting that now."

Each team will have the option to protect seven forwards, three defencemen and one goaltender, or protect eight total skaters and one goaltender.

Any player owning any type of no-trade or no-move clause, modified or not, must be protected, meaning if the Blackhawks choose the 7/3/1 option, their decision at defence has been made for them. Defencemen Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith and Niklas Hjalmarsson all own no-move clauses and must be protected. In that situation, defencemen Trevor van Riemsdyk and Michael Rozsival would be left exposed. Johnny Oduya and Brian Campbell, both currently on the roster, will be unrestricted free-agents in July and therefore are ineligible for the draft.

At forward, the Blackhawks must protect Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa and Artem Anisimov. Currently, Marcus Kruger, Ryan Hartman and Jordin Tootoo are the only remaining forwards to meet the requirements to be exposed.

Each team must expose at least one defenceman and two forwards and one goaltender. In order to expose the proper amount of players at each position, the Blackhawks could elect the 8/1 option and protect another defenceman.

With Corey Crawford owning a no-move clause, the team extended to the contract of goaltender Jeff Glass earlier this season in order to meet the draft requirements.

Last month, ESPN had four writers draw up their Golden Knights mock team based on the expansion draft. Three of the four mock teams included Kruger as the player selected from the Blackhawks, while one had van Riemsdyk being selected.