Kraken Future
The NHL’s 2-week break for the Four Nation’s Face-Off is a benchmark or a milestone for some teams to start making decisions ahead of the March 7th NHL trade deadline.
The Seattle Kraken are not a playoff team. It’s time to get crackin’ on deals and decisions.
General Manager Ron Francis should have started yesterday, or the day before. It’s time to plan for 2025-’26 and beyond right now.
Trade Yanni Gourde and Brandon Tanev before the deadline, unless the latter can be had at an extreme discount, because they’re both pending unrestricted free agents (UFA’s) at season’s end. Get a 4th-rounder, get a 3rd-rounder or a prospect from someone chasing a Cup looking for depth.
In the case of Gourde, despite his diminishing returns, he’s been there, done that. Never a bad idea to have a feisty former multi-Cup winner in your ranks down the stretch drive, if he’s healthy, which right now he’s not.
Both of these guys turn 34-years-of-age this coming December. One or both could have been moved last summer. Bye.
A bit further down the road, oft-injured crease anchor Philipp Grubauer needs to be bought out. We get that the price was high for him at the time of expansion, and at that point the goalie had most of the leverage. Oh well, time to move on. Whether or not the salary cap is going up next year or not, and who cares by how much, the club needs to shed what they can of the $5.9-million over the next two seasons. Bye.
I’m not sure what to say about Andre Burakovsky on the wing for another two years at $5.5-million other than “Uggh!” Good luck with that one Ronnie.
What the Kraken need are more decisions like locking in Joey Daccord, keeping in mind the always unpredictable nature of goaltending and the danger of presuming anything moving forward, and the move to get a rejuvenated Kaapo Kakko from the Rangers. I’m looking foward to see what he can produce for Finland in the Four Nations with his cheerful new approach.
Unfortunately right now the negatives outweigh the positives by a decent margin. The Kraken are a team without an identity. They say they have the same one that vaulted them to a playoff run two seasons ago, but I hate to break the news to you. In theory maybe; not so much in execution.
Shane Wright is improving, maturing, and impressing more often. Matty Beniers has some magic moments here and there but is still under-producing. He’s not a number-one center. Is he a number two? How about a really, really good number-three on a club where the top-3 are somewhat interchangeable depending on assignments. That would be good.
Chandler Stephenson hasn’t blown us away. He and fellow big ticket summer acquisition Brandon Montour seem like men on an island. Is it the their comrades they don’t always mesh with on the ice or is it the systems that don’t jive.
Coaching? Dan Bylsma deserves another look, another chance to move this along, although it must be tough not seeing the same success in the big show that he and Jessica Campbell saw in the AHL. They had elite veteran talent and balance at that level.
Oh, and the power play they brought with them? 18%, 20th in the NHL. Keeping in mind, the personnel. The PK is 26th out of 32 teams, one that features Tanev as a mainstay.
By the way, get Ryker Evans signed, would ya? Yes, he’s an RFA without arbitration rights and the Kraken have all the leverage, but what the heck. He’s a mainstay long term, unless I’m missing something.
Meanwhile, the “Big Four”, Montour (3 years left), Vince Dunn (2), Jamie Oleksiak (1), and Adam Larsson (3) are all around for at least one more season.
“Fan favorite” means nothing. Length of tenure, often tied to popularity, especially with expansion franchises, also should mean nothing. Unless you want empty seats watching fan favorites not making the playoffs.
Get creative Ron. Your job depends on it.
