Seattle Kraken at midseason – Part 1 Surprises, Redemption, and the GM
Ed Stein
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What do you think Ron Francis should have done differently in the offseason?
Ed Stein
I’ve been highly critical of Francis. Where do I begin?
He totally blew the draft, which the team sold as a big win to their fans. Gavin Bayruether and Carsen Twarynski, give me a break. I understand why the Kraken opted for big players; you can’t teach size. However, that size needs to come with a little bit of speed and agility.
Not being like Vegas didn’t exclude flipping players, getting picks, and leveraging cap space for prospects. Francis failed to play the game, then made excuses after.
The Chris Driedger signing happened too soon. For what they paid him, waiting the two days until league-wide free agency began would have worked. In the meantime, the Seattle Kraken could have drafted a useful player from Florida, such as Radko Gudas or Frank Vatrano, and still signed Driedger.
Francis signed the wrong free agent defenseman from Edmonton. He should have added Tyson Barrie, who has 17 points in 35 games, including 9 on the power play. Barrie re-upped for three years, $13.5M. Instead, the Kraken signed Adam Larsson (four years, $16M). His -17 ties him for seventh-worst in NHL +/- this season. They drafted plenty of big defensemen. Larssen is redundant.
This team lacks a faceoff “ace.” Francis signed Riley Sheahan on the cheap (one-year, $850K), saying “he wins more faceoffs than he loses.” Well, Sheahan hasn’t won more than he lost. When he isn’t scratched, Sheahan has a 47.5 winning percentage in the dot. The Kraken could have landed Luke Glendening, a career 55 percent winner, for a slightly higher investment. He signed in Dallas for two years, $3M, and won 59.3 percent of his draws this year, a tick lower than the 60.9 from last season.
RJ Eskanos
That’s a big question. I’ve been a pretty strong critic of Francis’ offseason performance. We’ve covered it in-depth in our podcast, but I’ll try to hit on some of the main points here. In my opinion, Francis misjudged the expansion draft process. He played the game wrong.
The expansion draft is about leveraging claims on other teams’ players and cap space. The way to gain assets from that leverage is to make trades. Francis didn’t make a single side deal during the expansion draft, a fact that baffled just about everyone at the time. He claimed that the side deal offers Vegas took advantage of simply weren’t there.
Hearing from team execs around the NHL that there’s still some sticker shock to what Kraken GM Ron Francis wants in return on side deals for teams with protection issues who want some certainty now… tick tock. The poker game is on. One month away. https://t.co/lhjTbEONMx
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) June 17, 2021
But given Francis’ reported asking price, there was probably some wiggle room had he been willing to budge, even if there was no chance to replicate the heavily lopsided deals Vegas made. Francis also didn’t take advantage of his team’s abundance of cap space. The Coyotes’ offseason moves showed that opportunity existed to stockpile assets by taking on undesirable contracts, which the Kraken didn’t do.