The Reading Royals have announced their 2026 Protected List. The Royals own the ECHL rights to all 29 players on the list.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rules of the Protected List<\/strong><\/p>\n Teams are allowed to protect as many players as they wish provided the players protected meet the guidelines as defined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the ECHL and the Professional Hockey Players\u2019 Association which state that teams shall retain the rights to each player that:<\/p>\n 1. Signed an SPC in 2025-26 with the Member, and has not been traded or released, OR<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. Signed an SPC in 2025-26, and was recalled to the NHL\/AHL or IIHF team, and has not been traded or released, OR<\/p>\n 3. Had received a Qualifying Offer last summer for the current Season, DID NOT sign an SPC, and has not been traded or released, OR<\/p>\n 4. Has been suspended by the Member or League, and has not been traded or released, OR<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 5. Signed an SPC on or after the first day of the 2025-26 Regular Season, then subsequently signed an NHL\/AHL contract, and has not been traded or released, OR<\/p>\n 6. Has executed the ECHL Retirement Form, and has not been traded or released.<\/p>\n Protected lists may exceed 20 players.<\/p>\n Players on the Protected List<\/strong><\/p>\n Forwards<\/strong><\/p>\n Nolan Burke<\/p>\n Alec Butcher<\/p>\n Cameron Cook<\/p>\n Nick Deakin-Poot<\/p>\n Liam Devlin<\/p>\n Jordan Frasca<\/p>\n Jacob Frasca<\/p>\n Kyle Haskins<\/p>\n Connor McMenamin\u00a0<\/p>\n Jeremy Michel<\/p>\n Yvan Mongo<\/p>\n Joseph Nardi<\/p>\n Mikael Robidoux<\/p>\n Brandon Saigeon\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin Saint\u00a0<\/p>\n Shane Sellar\u00a0<\/p>\n Jake Smith\u00a0<\/p>\n Ty Voit<\/p>\n Defensemen<\/strong><\/p>\n Davis Bunz<\/p>\n Robert Calisti\u00a0<\/p>\n Miles Gendron<\/p>\n Victor Hadfield\u00a0<\/p>\n Artem Kulakov<\/p>\n Jack Page\u00a0<\/p>\n Vincent Sevigny\u00a0<\/p>\n Kyle Walker<\/p>\n Connor Walters\u00a0<\/p>\n Jake Willets<\/p>\n Goaltender<\/strong><\/p>\n Ian Shane<\/p>\n Players Currently Playing Overseas<\/strong><\/p>\n Yvan Mongo \u2013 The 29-year-old left winger will be playing in France next year after signing with Bordeaux (Ligue Magnus) for the 2026-27 season. In 28 games with the Royals, he put up four goals and five assists for nine points in 29 games during the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joseph Nardi \u2013 The Edmonton, Alberta, native spent the 2025-26 season playing in the EIHL with the Manchester Storm, recording 12 goals and 13 assists for 25 points in 39 games. During his time with the Royals during the 2024-25 season, he put up 12 assists for 12 points in 27 games. Nardi has re-signed with Manchester Storm for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n Jake Smith \u2013 The Pickering, Ontario, native spent the 2025-26 season playing in Denmark and Finland with the Aalborg Pirates and JoKP, recording 19 goals and 19 assists for 38 points in 37 games. Smith does not have a contract for the 2026-27 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Robert Calisti \u2013\u00a0 The 25-year-old defenseman spent the 2025-26 season playing in Italy with Asiago, where he put up eight goals and 36 assists for 44 points in 46 games. Calisti does not have a contract for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kyle Walker \u2013 The Leduc, Alberta, native is heading overseas to Canada to play in the AHL with the Calgary Wranglers. During the 2025-26 season, Walker played in three games with the Royals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Connor Walters \u2013 The 29-year-old defenseman spent the 2025-26 season in Canada playing in the ACH with the St. Catharines Saints, he recorded three goals and ten assists for 13 points in 17 games. During this time with the Royals during the 2024-25 season, he put up three goals and four assists for seven points in 51 games. Walters does not have a contract for the 2026-27 season<\/p>\n What\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/p>\n This month is very busy as teams begin building for next season. June 20th is the ECHL Future Considerations Trade Deadline; the 22nd-season-ending roster is due; and on the 23rd, teams can start signing players for next season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source insidetherink.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Reading Royals have announced their 2026 Protected List. The Royals own the ECHL rights to all 29 players on the list. Rules of the Protected List Teams are allowed to protect as many players as they wish provided the players protected meet the guidelines as defined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the ECHL […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2452591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[383299,388213,432525,386103,377919,388217,481880,481881,401724,426680,388224,388225,481882,395295,340770,397738,481883,388227,481884,367645,450632,413979,481885,389805,305209,481886,481887,423360,401451,481888,345410],"class_list":["post-2452590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-alec-butcher","tag-artem-kulakov","tag-austin-saint","tag-brandon-saigeon","tag-cameron-cook","tag-connor-mcmenamin","tag-connor-walters","tag-davis-bunz","tag-echl","tag-ian-shane","tag-jack-page","tag-jacob-frasca","tag-jake-smith","tag-jake-willets","tag-jeremy-michel","tag-jordan-frasca","tag-joseph-nardi","tag-kyle-haskins","tag-kyle-walker","tag-liam-devlin","tag-mikael-robidoux","tag-miles-gendron","tag-nick-deakin-poot","tag-nolan-burke","tag-north","tag-robert-calisti","tag-shane-sellar","tag-ty-voit","tag-victor-hadfield","tag-vincent-sevigny","tag-yvan-mongo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ECHL-Reading-Royals-Announce-2026-Protected-List.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452592,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452590\/revisions\/2452592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2452591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"ITR](\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1000002446-1024x512.webp\")
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