The most notable player the Penguins will expose to Vegas in this week’s NHL expansion draft has been public for nearly a week.

But now, Marc-Andre Fleury has some company on that list.

The Penguins, along with the 29 other NHL teams, released their official protected lists Sunday morning.

Bryan Rust, Carl Hagelin, Scott Wilson, Tom Kuhnhackl and Ian Cole will be the most prominent names joining Fleury as players the Golden Knights could theoretically select.

Vegas has until 10 a.m. Wednesday to make its picks, which will be revealed during the NHL Awards Show Wednesday night. The picks will be revealed team-by-team, in reverse order of finish in this year’s standings, meaning the selection from the Penguins will be announced second-to-last.

The Penguins opted to protect eight skaters and one goalie, as opposed to the other option of seven forwards, three defenseman and one goalie.

This allowed them to keep an extra defenseman, and not have to expose Maatta, Schultz or Dumoulin, all young players under 26 the team considers the future of its blue line.

“That’s how we prioritized our players,” Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford said Sunday.

Vegas is still widely expected to select Fleury, making him their first starting goalie and potential face of the franchise. It’s possible, even, that the Penguins have a side deal in place sending some sort of asset to the Golden Knights to ensure they take Fleury, rather than one of the other available players.

Rutherford declined to comment on any potential deals like that when reached Sunday.

“I think it’s important for us and the league to allow Vegas to make their announcement at the appropriate time,” he said. “I’ll just let that run its course here the next few days.”

But when asked whether he was concerned about losing a player like Rust — who, as a young, cheap NHL-ready winger may be the most desirable asset on the Penguins’ exposed list — Rutherford replied, “Not based on what I know today.”

If the Golden Knights do indeed select Fleury, the rest of the Penguins’ list is moot, since Vegas can only select one player from each of the other 30 NHL teams.

“There’s a lot of things that could happen, there’s one thing that probably will happen,” Cole said at the Penguins’ locker clean-out Thursday. “There’s a lot of things that could happen, and it’s really so far out of our hands, I don’t think that worrying about it or stressing about it is something that will really change the outcome or have any benefit.”

Cole, 28, has turned into a bedrock defenseman for the Penguins over the last two-plus years since coming over in a trade from St. Louis. He played in 81 regular-season games this year — missing only the meaningless finale in New York — and all 25 playoff games. He has one year left on his contract, with a cap hit of $2.1 million.

By going with the option of protecting eight skaters - rather than seven forwards and three defensemen - the Penguins were able to protect all three of Schultz, Dumoulin and Maatta.