Hold onto your caps.

The NHL, in a sudden yet brilliant change of tune, is declaring it will make public protected-player lists leading up to June’s expansion draft for the Vegas Golden Knights.

A report from ESPN early in the month indicated that the league and its general managers might opt to keep those lists secret, preventing anyone outside of the NHL’s 30 existing franchises from knowing which players might be eligible to be stolen by Vegas for the 2017-18 season.

For plenty of reasons, most not so good purely from a league-to-fan relationship standpoint, a secretive approach to the expansion draft would not have been all too surprising. The NHL, after all, has been infamous for some transparency issues in recent history, most notably suggesting that fans had no interest in salary-cap or player-contract details when, in fact, that was not the case.

And yet, here we are, with the Stanley Cup Playoffs right around the corner, and the NHL is choosing to embrace just that: transparency.

Here’s what Bill Daly, the league’s deputy commissioner, had to say:

After a lot of internal discussion following the General Managers meeting (March 6-8), we determined it would be best to disclose those lists publicly. One of our guiding principles from the start of this process was to prioritize transparency, and certainly here, keeping the lists private would not have promoted that particular objective.

It’s a subtle step in the sense that ... well, everyone’s eyes are on the unfolding postseason picture at this moment. But it’s a huge one in the grand scheme of things, inviting all levels of the NHL fan base to engage in what should be a massive opportunity for public-relations success this off-season.

Now, speculation on which players could be staying or going will be welcomed. More importantly, so will broader interest in something as unique as an expansion draft. And as unnerving as publicizing protected-player lists might be for some GMs behind closed doors, such an apparent change of heart signals to everyone outside of the NHL front offices that, yes, personnel people can be held accountable for their mistakes -- and celebrated for their successes.

Bravo, NHL. Bravo.