One way or another, Kraken D-man Vince Dunn will be getting signed shortly. Here’s your Kraken line-up … until it’s not.
I think the club could use one more forward, even with Andre Burakovsky coming back from injury and Tye Kartye trying to bust into the regular line-up. It’ll be an interesting camp for the bottom-six forwards in particular.
The Kraken 2023 Line-up
Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz – Alex Wennberg – Andre Burakovsky
Tye Kartye – Yanni Gourde – Eeli Tolvanen
Brandon Tanev – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Oliver Bjorkstrand
*Wild card – Kartye
Extras for now: Kailer Yamamoto, Kole Lind
Notes:
— Beniers is clearly the top center, but the wings on the top two lines are interchangeable 1A and 1B.
— There will be a dandy of a competition for the bottom six wingers. Wide open. Tanev scores the least but is a maniac on the penalty kill. Bjorkstrand is a 20 goal scorer. Kartye will try to bump a veteran.
— The Kraken could still stand to add an option to 38-year-old Bellemare. He could get bumped to the press box if a capable winger moves to the middle. Just a feeling, but I also think Tolvanen could be bumped, despite seeing a bit of time on the power play.
— It would be nice to see Lind step up and add some competition to the right side.
Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Justin Schultz
Brian Dumoulin – Will Borgen
*Wild Card – Ryker Evans
Extras: Cale Fleury, Jaycob Megna
Note: Dumoulin, a lefty, is just as comfortable on the right, but for now, the Kraken have three righties in the line-up.
Philipp Grubauer
Joey Daccord
Note: That’s right, Joey D is getting the nod for now over Chris Driedger.
If The Kraken Were A Baseball Team
1) Brandon Tanev – CF – Leadoff hitter, would love watching him break up double plays at 2nd base.
2) Matty Beniers – LF – Slap hitter. Could beat out infield hits from the left side.
3) Adam Larsson – C – Not sure about putting a Swede in the 3-hole. But at least he’d intimidate pitchers.
4) Jamie Oleksiak – DH – Giant switch hitter in the clean-up spot.
5) Jordan Eberle – 2B – Savvy hitter and base runner.
6) Vince Dunn – 3B – Would put up numbers in a contract year.
7) Jared McCann – 1B – Threat to go deep near the bottom of the line-up.
8) Eeli Tolvanen – RF – Looking for walks. Can’t hit a baseball; he’s Finnish.
9) Yanni Gourde – SS – Rile things up and start rallies from the bottom of the order.
Starting Pitcher – 2023 1st-rounder Eduard Sale – He’s only thrown 1 pitch in his life and it was a strike.
NHL Deals
A couple of players who just haven’t figured things out yet have been signed to new deals, one of them with a new club.
The Detroit Red Wings waived and bought out the disaster-to-this-point 2018 6th-overall pick Filip Zadina last week and the lefty Czech winger just signed a one-year deal with the San Jose Sharks.
He’s not necessarily a disaster – not nice – but the pick was, considering the Red Wings were desperate for help on the blueline in the early stages of a rebuild and failed to pick Quinn Hughes (7th to the Canucks), Adam Boqvist (8th to the Blackhawks), Evan Bouchard (10th to the Oilers), or Noah Dobson (12th to the Islanders).
The “sniper” Zadina has 28 goals in 190 NHL games.
Vancouver couldn’t believe their good fortune when Hughes dropped into their lap.
Speaking of the Canucks, scatter-shot winger Nils Hoglander gets another crack at nailing down the 200-foot game and finding his hands; a new two-year deal signed on Sunday for $1.1-million per season. He has 26 goals and 54 points in 141 NHL games.
Zadina is 23-years-old, Hoglander just 22.
Yesterday:
— The Kraken’s Top-3 NHL Prospects
