Seattle Kraken at midseason – Part 1 Surprises, Redemption, and the GM
Ed Stein
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Jonathan West
I don’t know how much could have actually been done, and not sure if anyone will publicly know the story of what went on in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft war room. Jesse Granger, who covers VGK for the Athletic, recently tweeted about Seattle versus Vegas at this point.
Seattle just suffered its 24th regulation loss of its inaugural season in its 40th game (12-24-4).
The Golden Knights lost 24 games in regulation in their entire inaugural season (51-24-7) with identical expansion rules.
Rough for the “Vegas was handed a Cup contender” crowd.
— Jesse Granger (@JesseGranger_) January 22, 2022
This is more feast vs. famine. I think general managers around the league were ready for Seattle last summer after (Vegas GM) George McPhee gamed the system five years ago. It’s hard seeing the lineup that was selected in July, but maybe that truly was the best available, minus a few selections.
If that holds true, it will be rough sailing for a while- at least until the summer off-season. Not making a splash in free agency so far is definitely on this GM… along with a huge contract for a relatively unproven goaltender.
Ciara Durant
After his selections in the expansion draft, I really wanted to give Francis the benefit of the doubt. With the success we saw in Vegas a few years ago, clearly, a team of misfits can have their Cinderella story. But maybe Vegas was the outlier instead of the new normal with expansion teams. Nonetheless, they created a recipe for success, and while I don’t believe Francis should have followed it exactly, he should have taken notes.
I really believe that not making side deals is coming back and biting him in the butt. Whatever claim he may have made about there not really being a market for side deals following the draft, I find that hard to believe. Francis gives me the impression that he is very inflexible and values his players much more than he probably should. While it’s great to value your players, that kind of pride is often what leads teams to the bottom of the standings.
This feels like bad asset management by Seattle. If Kraken knew Jets were interested in Brenden Dillon, why didn't Ron Francis take him, trade and get BOTH these second-round picks?
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) July 28, 2021
With all the hype surrounding Seattle’s analytics department, you think Francis would have made a series of moves proceeding the draft that could have beefed up his roster a little bit. I’m not necessarily of the opinion that he should have selected bigger names like Carey Price.
However, there were several other players on the table that he definitely should have picked up. Instead, he was left with what was essentially an AHL team at the end of the day. I thought maybe he’d have a strategy come together in the following days, but we saw him make one trade.
Related: 9 Seattle Kraken games rescheduled by NHL
Join us later this week for Part 2 of our Seattle Kraken mid-season review.