12 big-ticket players who could come to the Seattle Kraken
Ed Stein
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James Neal, RW, Edmonton Oilers, 33, $5.75M – 2023
We’ve speculated about James Neal coming to Seattle. The streaky goal scorer will be very much available to Seattle in the expansion draft. He was an original Golden Knight and did well with Vegas, scoring 44 points in 71 games before leaving as a free agent the next season.
For all the reasons there are to take the former 87 points-in-a-season-wing, there are many more reasons not to. As mentioned earlier, Neal is very streaky. He could score eight goals in five games and then be practically invisible for the next dozen.
Neal is paid like a big-time scorer but has had more than 25 goals only once since 2014. Last year he was limited to 29 games and had just 10 points. Edmonton will have to compensate the Kraken for taking on Neal’s bloated contract.
Jordan Eberle, RW, New York Islanders, 31, $5.5M – 2024
When putting together the early mock drafts, I was a big proponent of the Kraken adding Jordan Eberle. My enthusiasm has cooled in recent months. To put it simply, Eberle should produce at a higher clip than he does.
Since Eberle joined the Isles three seasons ago, his production slipped by .13 points per game from what it was during the previous seven in Edmonton. Over a full season, that’s 10.5 points leaving him at an average of 50.2.
It’s not all negatives, though. Eberle plays for a very defense-oriented coach, Barry Trotz, in New York. Some would say 50 points per season in Trotz’s system isn’t too bad, I agree. If it comes down to it, drafting Eberle would be that bad. He just doesn’t provide as much bang for the buck that Francis could find elsewhere.
Patric Hornqvist, RW, Florida Panthers, 34, $5.3M – 2023
Patric Hornqvist had the second-best points per game of his career in 2020-21 at 0.72. Even at 34, he still moves well on the ice. The Swede has two things going for him, flexibility and penalty-killing ability. He can play on any line and produce to acceptable levels. Additionally, Hornqvist would be a mainstay of Seattle’s first PK unit.
The Panthers will expose more useful and less expensive players than Hornqvist, such as Radko Gudas, Mackenzie Weegar, and Sam Montembeault. If Florida can put together the right incentives to take on Hornqvist’s $5.3M cap hit, he can be an asset to the Kraken. But it will have to be very big incentives.