12 big-ticket players who could come to the Seattle Kraken
Ed Stein
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Tyler Johnson, F, Tampa Bay Lightning, 30, $5M – 2024
Tyler Johnson is a Washington native hailing from Spokane. There’s no guarantee T.J. Oshie will be available in the expansion draft. If the Kraken is looking for a local hook, Johnson might be their man.
He’s played a variety of roles in Tampa Bay, centering almost every line. Being on a team with Steven Stamkos, it’s hard for any center to get first-line minutes. So the Bolts used Johnson primarily as a defensive center. That’s not very common for someone as small as him.
T.J. Oshie, RW, Washington Capitals, 34, $5.75M – 2025
There has been plenty of talk about T.J. Oshie coming back home to be the face of the Seattle Kraken franchise. That’s great for people in the Emerald City to speculate about. However, his career in Washington doesn’t appear to be over just yet.
Oshie told the Caps that he prefers that they protect him in the expansion draft. He may be 35-years-old, but his fountain of youth is in D.C. In 2020-21, he scored 0.81 points per game, the second-best mark of his career.
Second, Washington considers him to be an important part of the team. At his end-of-season press conference last week, Washington Capitals General Manager Brian McClellan made it sound like he expects to have Oshie back next season.
“It would hurt our team and our organization if we lost him in the expansion draft. I don’t know that we’ve fully made any decisions on that, but ideally, we’d like to keep him around.”
Are McClellan’s comments a ploy to get a better return for Oshie? That’s hard to say, but Washington’s Stanley Cup window probably has another year or two remaining.