The first shoe has dropped for the still-spiraling Seattle Kraken, who announced on Wednesday that Ron Francis, their first general manager in franchise history and current president of hockey operations, will be stepping down at the end of the season.
Hired on July 17, 2019, two full years before the team’s expansion draft, Francis effectively built a hockey operations department and two teams—including the Coachella Valley Firebirds—from the ground up and was even involved in the designs for Kraken Community Iceplex and much more. Although he moved out of the general manager’s chair after last season, it is fair to say Francis has his fingerprints on almost every hockey-related facet of the organization.
“Ron and I agreed that this is the right moment to make a thoughtful transition for both Ron and the organization, and move in a new direction,” said Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke in a press release. “From a small office in Lower Queen Anne to the 32nd NHL franchise, Ron’s leadership and vision were instrumental in building this franchise from the ground up. Under his stewardship, we reached the playoffs in our second season, and he leaves behind a strong foundation of draft picks and promising prospects that will continue to shape the future of the team. We are grateful for his dedication and professionalism, and we wish Ron and his family the very best.”
The Kraken appear to be doing their best to make this a graceful exit for Francis, who even weighed in with a quote of his own in that same press release about his impending departure.
“It has been an honor to help launch and lead the Seattle Kraken over the past seven years,” Francis said. “I am proud of the culture we built, the people we brought together, and the milestones we achieved, including our historic first playoff run. I want to thank our entire ownership group, everyone throughout the organization, and our incredible fans for their unwavering support. This organization has a bright future, and I’m grateful to have been part of its beginning.”
It was a big undertaking
The job Francis took on back in 2019, creating an NHL team from scratch and soon being forced to navigate launching an expansion franchise in the midst of a pandemic, was a big one. And while he made plenty of shrewd moves along the way and seems to have set the organization up with a solid prospect pool and a handful of movable assets that could help the team improve, Seattle’s track record under his watch left a lot to be desired.
Indeed, the Kraken did go to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Year 2. But that’s about the extent of what the Kraken have had to boast about in a very long five years. There’s no doubt that ownership and fans would have expected more progress, and the way this season’s team has nosedived back into “hoping for losses for a better draft pick” territory signaled that at least this change was on the way.
Francis has been massively respected and looked up to throughout the Kraken organization, and I think that has had something to do with why it took so long to get to this. But it was past time for Francis and the Kraken to part ways.
Good at drafting (apparently), not so good on the pro side
I genuinely think Francis did a good job of building out the prospect pipeline for this organization. I know there are plenty who will disagree with that sentiment, but he created an environment where a significant portion of the existing roster has risen through Seattle’s system to begin playing regular NHL minutes. Meanwhile, there’s a whole host of players in Coachella Valley who have shown glimpses of one day being NHLers.
Will any of them be star players who will take this team to the promised land? It doesn’t seem like that will be the case, but at a minimum, there are effective pieces there that can eventually fill some of the void when the original veterans have filtered out of the Kraken roster.
Remember, only a small percentage of NHL prospects actually make it. The fact that Seattle has so many of its homegrown players already here and playing regular minutes does show that the team is drafting and developing in the way that Francis always claimed they would.
But my gripe with Francis’ approach comes in how he built the Kraken’s roster from the beginning and how he so rarely found ways to pry talented players away from other teams. To me, it showed a lack of creativity.
At the Expansion Draft, for example, Seattle made no trades with other teams to allow them to protect certain players by handing over additional assets. The narrative at the time was that GMs had wised up after the Vegas Expansion Draft, and nobody wanted to be made to look foolish this time. That’s true, but it could also be that Seattle’s asks were unreasonable. It could also be that the Kraken weren’t clever enough in their wheeling and dealing to talk other teams into handing over additional talented players in the way that the Golden Knights had. Francis ended up going straight by the book, selecting from what was made available by the rest of the league.
And as the years went on and the losses mounted, we saw how Francis operated. Every transaction was so calculated and careful—except for when he threw big bags of money at Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson in free agency—that it was as if moves could only be made if they were absolute no-brainers, with no special arrangements involved.
There were no cap-retention, three-team trades with 10 different draft-pick conditions. There were only “here is a draft pick or two, now send me a bottom-six forward” type trades.
Even when it seems like players aren’t moving around the league that much, there’s always a price that can get GMs thinking about pulling the trigger on trades. And we kept hearing about how—after they started stockpiling draft picks—the team wouldn’t end up using all those picks and would instead cash some of them in to acquire talent. But that almost never happened.
So where did that lack of aggressiveness and creativity leave the Kraken? With one playoff appearance in five years and no obvious path toward immediate improvement.
Now what?
It seems that Jason Botterill is now fully in charge of hockey operations, though we’ll likely get more clarity on that after Tod Leiweke addresses the media on Thursday morning. What concerns me is that Botterill has so far—in his one year in the GM’s chair—shown a similar lack of propensity for creative moves.
Botterill traded two draft picks for Mason Marchment, then got similar draft picks back when that didn’t work out. He sent a fourth-round pick to Minnesota for Freddy Gaudreau. He sent two picks to Toronto for Bobby McMann, who is on an expiring contract and who I am less convinced with every passing loss will want to re-sign in Seattle.
So what really is changing with Francis leaving? Is Botterill suddenly going to get aggressive this summer and start swinging deals that will drastically improve the culture of the locker room and the on-ice talent? Why couldn’t he do that with Francis still around, given that Botterill was already calling the shots this season?
This team has a long way to go to even be relevant, and this is a pivotal moment for the Kraken. If this change leads to bolder, more creative decisions, then that could finally move the team forward. If not, and Seattle comes back with a similar roster yet again next season, then it risks being another cosmetic change for a franchise still seeking a clear direction.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
I called for this firing five years ago, when Francis screwed the pooch on the expansion draft. He totally ruined what could have been great franchise. Good riddance!!
The most perceptive comment was over at the Times from poster brotherhood4all:
“Jason Botterill needs to go too. We are on a trajectory for perpetual mediocrity and Botterill has done nothing to alter that. His summer FA signings were a complete dud and McMann was a good trade IF he can resign him. Re. Lane Lambert, can you honestly say any of our young guns improved this year? Wright regressed, Beniers is flat (and ~10 pts off his second year), and Catton has a whopping 16 pts as a rookie. The worst part, as a bubble wildcard team since the Olympic break, the team collapsed like a cheap lawn chair. The team lacks an identity, a true offensive force despite 4+ years of drafting and poor development. I think the team needs to clean house and bring in Mike Gillis as GM before the Leafs sign him. I want this team to succeed so bad (especially before the NBA consumes the city’s mindshare), but what signal do we have that we are anything but mediocre (or below) when you look at our big club and the prospects.”
What exactly is perceptive here? This stuff is just plain obvious and pure fandom. “Wright regressed”. By what metric? He’s still learning the game. From what I’ve seen is hes a turnover machine in the neutral zone. Zings passes all over the place and cant play a simple game. “Beniers is flat”. and??? “Catton has a whopping 16 pts as a rookie”. He’s not a NHLer. I’ve actually seen massive improvements in his game since the olympic break. hes going to be a stud next year.
Do you watch the games objectively? Or just look at the final score? Its a genuine question. I ask because sometimes you have to put things into perspective.
You’ll quickly learn bringing facts to this comment section is not particularly welcome nor is challenging people on their hot takes and shower thoughts.
You’re right tho. People gloss over a lot of warts on some of the players. I legit heard someone complain we weren’t starting Nyman. Said person clearly hasn’t actually watched Nyman play hockey and is overly enamored with his shot.
Pipe down, Koist, the adults are talking.
I dont know if you’re being ironic or not.
seriously, i also wanted to see more of nyman but the number one thing i noticed this year is he doesnt use his size, doesnt battle and is a defensive liability. like sprong 2.0. the good news is hes young and can probably fix some of that and hopefully become a nice middle 6 forward but currently hes a problem defensively.
Yeah I don’t know if he’s as lost cause as Spring but I’m sure he’s been given the feedback the whole season and he doesn’t appear to get better after every call up.
Oh I’m well aware. I’ve resisted commenting on the SOH comments section for weeks now. Some of the decent has gotten out of hand so I had to chime in.
Honestly, the crying has gotten on my nerves.
“Why couldn’t he do that with Francis still around, given that Botterill was already calling the shots this season?”
The obvious answer is that Botterill was not calling the shots this season. This is at least somewhat backed up by today’s press conference, in which they said (paraphrasing) that they are “going back to a model where the GM calls the shots.”
That’s not how paraphrasing works lol
You’re jumping to the conclusion that Botterill isnt calling the “shots” because no creative moves were made.
Correlation does not equal causation.
The full quote: “We’re going to go back to the model we started with. We’re going to have a GM who makes the decisions.”
First, I stand by my paraphrase. It’s accurate.
Second: if they’re going *back* to the model where the GM makes the decisions, this raises the question: what was the model this year?
Third: you’re lecturing a statistician about correlation and causation in a situation where neither concept is applicable. 🙂
You say neither correlation or causation is applicable here. Let me explain further then because data is more than just numbers. As a statistician, you should know this.
Let’s start by getting the story straight here.
In Darren’s article above he is talking about creative moves by Ron Francis and his inability to make them happen. He says whats next? And why hasn’t Botterill been able to make creative moves this season with Francis out as GM.
You find a quote and correlate Botterill’s lack of creative moves to one sentence that says they’re going back to a model in which the gm makes decisions. You correlate these two data points.
You then say that it’s “obvious” Francis was still in charge and has been “calling the shots” all along based on those two things. That’s causation.
It’s not obvious. Plain and simple.
The reality is that Ron Francis has not been making on ice hockey decisions since getting moved to “president of hockey operations”. It’s a ceremonial position that you give an executive you don’t want to outright fire.
Botterill has such a limited scope of work that drawing any conclusions about his performance can’t be definitively made.
This years trade deadline was quite. Did any GM make a creative move? He just took over as GM last summer. Do you really expect him to make creative moves then? Do creative moves define how good or bad you are as a GM??
As for paraphrasing, I get what you’re saying but you’re taking two sentences and using it in your own words to support your claim. Call that paraphrasing if you want but your just misquoting something while saying your misquoting it.
That’s a very poor paraphrase. What was alluded to is that JB may have felt external pressure or not as free, nothing more.
How do you say these made up things like it’s true? Don’t you feel dirty.
Great writeup, thank you! Let’s hope Botterill is unleashed now?!
I feel that the kraken are making a huge mistake if they keep Botterill, this is the perfect opportunity to clean house. Maybe they know something that I don’t and RF was still pulling the strings. Hopefully Botterill will become his own man now and will clean up the mess RF made but I’m not totally convinced.
Removing Botterill now would make it very easy to clean out the coaching staff as well and truly make a statement that they will not accept the mushy middle. A complete rest for the franchise, by just removing RF they haven’t really done that.
Let’s see how this works out, removing RF was overdue.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Not only are they making a huge mistake if they don’t let him go – but saying that Botterill is the one who’d going to do an audit! Good grief. I’m no genius but I do have intuition and IMO, Botterill doesn’t have the chops to be an NFL GM at this time. He seems unqualified – at least in the capacity the Kraken need him to be.
This is the moment where ownership can pull the bandaid off or slowly pick at it. Make the changes that need to be made, period. They should let go of LL as well. I know it doesn’t look good to change coaches 3x in 3/yr but, here we are.
What about head coach hirings and firings? I rarely see that talked about here. Forget the expansion draft narrative. Forget about the inability to creatively get deals done. Three head coaches in five years is never going to bring about success. Hakstall was a mistake. Easy to say in hindsight but the Bylsma hire and subsequent fire was a fireable offense which ultimately cost him his GM role.
Botterill on the other hand has chosen a path. Lane Lambert. I like the moves he’s made. They align with what Lambert wants to do. McMann is a perfect fit. Kakko and Stephenson have benefited from his arrival. He moved on from Marchment quickly. We also forget he unloaded a 5.5 million dollar Burakovsky contract. The roster has been built with flexibility, not by chance but by design. There’s a runway.
They need to choose a plan, stick to it and build on it. In 5 years, Ron Francis was somehow not able to do that. In the next 5 years Botteril will. He has to.
Lambert is a placeholder, at best. There is no future with him, he’ll suffice while they clear out the roster.
There’s no point hiring a coach until the draft lottery, anyway. If they get 1 or 2 and land a gem like McKenna or Stenberg then replacing Lambert with someone who can handle youth is more critical; even if they intend to play more of the CV guys, those two are in a different category. No one else in the draft will be ready to go day 1 so they can focus elsewhere for now.
Whatever they do, please stop using the recycling bin to find a replacement. This team ought to go younger, hungrier, fresher, more creative. As were all too familiar with by now, the “name” brand coach (or, especially GM) are available for a reason
We went younger and more “energy” with Bylsma last year! He came from Coachella Valley for christ sake after bringing them to two consecutive AHL cup finals! Its funny that you bring up fresh energy coaches when responding to my post about Bylsma. Its the reason Ron Francis got fired in the first place!
Furthermore, It takes more than 1 superstar to win in the NHL. This isnt the NBA where all you need is 3. Theres 12 forwards, 6 defenseman and 2 goalies that need to contribute in the way they’re expected to. I dont give an F about one 18-19 year old. I care about playing good hockey.
“the “name” brand coach (or, especially GM) are available for a reason”. really?? what two coaches won the last three Stanley Cups? Paul Maurice won the whole thing after 2 years in charge. Bruce Cassidy won it all in his first! Whats wrong with hiring from the so called “recycling bin” again??
So, you’d be mad if they went to the recycling bin and fished out Maurice, Torts or Cassidy? Speaking of Cassidy… I’m just saying that winning teams seem to be using the earth friendly option and frankly, there are only a handful of good, albeit, controversial coaches. At least that’s the way it seems.
Yup, do the same thing they’ve been doing. The only thing they’ve been doing. Hey maybe they can resign the UFAs, extend Dunn & McCann and overpay a 30 year old guy on a hot streak, too!
Some of the fandom is in worse shape than the team’s management.
This team needs a complete mindset shift. Everywhere…
Maurice took over a President’s trophy winning team. Cassidy took over a franchise absolutely committed to winning and intolerant of mid level performers.
The Kraken are bottom feeders who need to start over. Again
OK not the best example, (see i can admit when im wrong) but point being those two coaches bring structure and accountability to their teams. That’s what Lambert preaches every single day.
They did start over. This year. This IS the start. Welcome. I said this months ago but maybe the new people need to hear it again.
This is the hockey we got. Strap in because its going to be a long and bumpy ride.
Hire a Tampa Bay assistant coach and follow their path. All vets on this team other than FA’s have been discarded by other teams for a reason. Don’t resign them again, they will not get better, Trade the others for other young players, fire Jessica she can’t teach them to get better. Hire teachers of the NHL game and trade for learners of the game. Seattle has a good young base to build on.
It sounds like the guy that built the Lightning may be available soon.
We’ll see what the narrative is prior to 26-27. If it’s the same “make the playoffs” line with the same LL system favoring vets, count me out. I can’t take another year of unwatchable hockey.
Just a thought and throwing a name out there. There was some talk a few years ago about NHL Network / ESPN host Kevin Weekes
was being considered somewhere for a front office position. Not sure if he is even qualified for such a position, Nor do I care one way or another. Just opening it up for any comment or thoughts…
If ever their was a time to think outside the box, this would be it. The Flyers hired Keith Jones, so far its’ worked out pretty well.
On 32 Thoughts today…
For those who’ve suspected Ron Francis has been “pulling the strings”, Friedman speculated he’s actually been pushed out going all the way back to the Bylsma hiring – a month before the Stephenson and Montour signings.
He should have been fired after the Stephenson and Monty signings. It was stupid that he lasted 2 more years after those moves.
If what Friedman was speculating is true those signings are on Botterill… not Francis. What I inferred was that was the beginning of him (Botterill) guiding the direction of the franchise.
Given Francis’ history of avoiding these type of signings, as well as the rumors swirling about him not wanting to hire Bylsma in the first place, this would make way more sense then the idea of Francis as a clandestine master of puppets.