Splish splash, went the Seattle Kraken on the first day of their first-ever NHL free agency period. When the waves of last week’s Expansion Draft calmed into ripples, Seattle had three relatively young goalies in the fold in Chris Driedger, Vitek Vanecek, and Joey Daccord. But the makeup of the team’s goaltending platoon changed dramatically on Wednesday when the Kraken signed the top backstop on the unrestricted free agent market, Philipp Grubauer, to a six-year deal worth north of $35 million.
The 29-year-old Rosenheim, Germany, native was a Vezina Trophy finalist this past season, after putting up outstanding numbers in Colorado. He finished the year with a 30-9-1 record, boasting a 1.95 goals against average and .922 save percentage in 40 games. Those numbers are not an anomaly. Throughout his career, which spans six seasons with the Capitals and three seasons with the Avalanche, his save percentage is an impressive .920 in 214 games. He also won a Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018, though he only had a couple of playoff appearances that year, with Braden Holtby getting the vast majority of playing time.
There was plenty of talk prior to the Expansion Draft that the Kraken would select Carey Price and his monster $10.5 million annual cap hit for the next five years. General manager Ron Francis confirmed at the time that he and his staff had seriously considered it, but they ultimately decided it was just too big of an investment. Instead, they went the UFA route to bring in Grubauer, who is four years younger than Price and will cost them $5.9 million against the cap. So, it’s a big contract, but in the context of what Seattle almost had, this is a fair price and term for an elite NHL netminder.
Grubauer is not gigantic by goalie standards at 6-foot-1, 188 pounds, but he plays big in the net. He has quiet feet and reads the play in front of him exceptionally well. With that anticipation, he puts himself in position to make the save just about every time.
“We’re excited to add a goaltender of Philipp’s caliber, especially coming off of a season where he was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy,” Francis said via press release. “He was a part of a Stanley Cup-winning team and has been one of the top goaltenders in the league over the past few seasons, and we’re happy that he chose to join our team.”
Seattle is poised to have a strong blue line in its inaugural season, and with a top-tier netminder playing behind it, this is going to be a hard team against which to score goals. The question remains whether the Kraken will be able to score goals of their own, although they did make a couple more moves on Thursday in adding Jaden Schwartz and Alex Wennberg to address that concern.
Vitek Vanecek traded back to Capitals
Though Francis previously made it sound like he and his staff were very comfortable going into the season with Driedger and Vanecek as their battery, we at Sound Of Hockey had a hunch the team still hoped to add a more veteran goalie either through free agency or trade. Though both of those netminders are promising, it just seemed unlikely that this team would bank so heavily on two players with essentially one full year of NHL experience each and zero years as a true No. 1 starter. Going with that combo was always Plan B.
“We took Vitek Vanacek thinking that he’d be part of our goaltending tandem with Chris Dreidger,” Francis said Wednesday. “I don’t think we expected Grubauer to get to free agency. I think any team would tell you when you’ve got a goaltender that has that experience you’ll sleep a lot better at night.”
The Grubauer signing meant that the Kraken needed to jettison one of their goalies. Driedger just signed a three-year contract and was one of the six players the Kraken trotted out on stage at the Expansion Draft, so they clearly saw him as part of the puzzle. Vanecek would require waivers to get to the AHL, so the Kraken opted to move him and get an asset out of the selection. Remarkably, they are getting a second-round pick in 2023 back from the Capitals, the team from which they snagged him just one week ago.
The #SeaKraken have traded goaltender Vitek Vanecek to the Washington Capitals for a second round pick in the 2023 #NHLDraft.
With Vanecek out, the Kraken still have north of $16 million in cap space. They do need to get Vince Dunn under contract still (we project him in the range of $3 million to $3.5 million), plus perhaps their three other RFA’s, Carsen Twarynski, Dennis Cholowski, and Will Borgen. Those three will likely be on two-way deals, though, so they can be assigned to the AHL and will not count against the cap.
There are likely a lot more moves coming in this condensed offseason, but starting your inaugural campaign with a good blue line, elite goal crease, decent forward group, and more than $10 million in cap space is a pretty good spot for Seattle.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Remember when the Expansion Draft happened… like… a year ago? Oh, what? It was last Wednesday? Well, it certainly feels like it happened much longer ago, because so much has transpired for the Seattle Kraken in such a short period of time. In the frenzy of pre-Expansion Draft activity, one particular little nugget of news briefly showed its face before retreating back down into the depths of Lake Union. The Seattle Kraken had apparently had conversations with free agent left wing Jaden Schwartz about signing him and in turn selecting him from the St. Louis Blues. The conversations happened during Seattle’s 48-hour exclusive window in which it could negotiate with unrestricted free agents.
The Kraken had contract talks with pending UFA Jaden Schwartz but ultimately did not sign him during the window which just closed, source confirms. So the Kraken's pick will be another Blues player. Dunn? Tarasenko?@TSNHockey@TheAthletic
Sure enough, the Kraken did circle back with Schwartz, and on Tuesday, the day before free agency officially opens, Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic reported that the deal was done.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the terms of the contract were unknown, but Schwartz is coming off of a five-year deal that carried an annual $5.35 million hit against the salary cap.
What the Kraken have in Jaden Schwartz
With the hockey world clamoring for the Kraken to snag Vladimir Tarasenko and his $7.5 million cap hit in the Expansion Draft, the team resisted and instead selected 24-year-old defenseman Vince Dunn from the Blues.
Why that’s relevant here is that one has to wonder if Schwartz was truly ready to sign with Seattle during its 48-hour exclusive negotiating window, but the team instead opted to have him wait so it could also get Dunn. Whether that’s the case or not, it’s a masterful job by general manager Ron Francis and company to end up with two very valuable pieces from St. Louis instead of one.
So what do the Kraken have in Schwartz? Well, first and foremost, he possesses the “never quit” attitude that Seattle clearly values in the players it has brought in so far. Watch him get in on the forecheck to pry a puck loose, then find a quiet spot in front of the net and bat the cross-crease pass out of the air to give his team a late lead in the 2018-19 opening playoff round against Winnipeg.
That season, when the Blues won the Stanley Cup, Schwartz played an enormous role, potting 12 goals in total and adding eight assists in the postseason. In the below video, you’ll get a good understanding of the types of goals that Schwartz scores. He has a nose for the net, and he’s willing to grind and battle in front to find space. But he also has good puck skills and regularly uses his exceptional hand-eye coordination to find and re-direct pucks.
The 29-year-old Wilcox, Saskatchewan, native remains a fan favorite in St. Louis, and it was interesting to see replies from Blues fans on Twitter Tuesday, who were generally quite angry that the team had reportedly lost Schwartz to the Kraken. That’s typically a good sign. In fact, even the Blues themselves apparently find him to be quite marketable, being that he still adorns the homepage of their website.
Jaden Schwartz by the numbers
In ten total seasons with St. Louis, Schwartz had 154 goals and 231 assists in the regular season, plus 26 goals and 28 assists in the playoffs. His peak offensive output came in 2014-15, when he posted 63 points in 75 games, including 28 goals. Schwartz was drafted No. 14 overall by St. Louis in 2010 after one season with the USHL’s Tri-City Storm. He then played two seasons at Colorado College before turning pro and splitting his first season between the AHL and NHL.
He really emerged as a mainstay in the top six for the Blues in 2013-14 when he erupted for 25 goals and 31 assists. His possession numbers have been good over the course of his career as well (he was a plus player in Corsi for and expected goals for percentages in 2019-20), but those dipped into the minuses in the shortened 2020-21, when he also missed time with injury.
We shall see what the details of the contract are when they are announced (we assume) on Wednesday, but if the Kraken got even a fair deal here, Jaden Schwartz is a great signing that should be a huge factor in the early days of this organization.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
What a week it was. The Seattle Kraken held an Expansion Draft, participated in an NHL Entry Draft, and signed some UFA’s all in one week. It probably was the busiest week the Kraken will ever experience.
A lot happened, starting with the Expansion Draft held at Gas Works Park.
The anticipation was high thanks to some of the big names that were left exposed to the Kraken. On top of that, the hockey world expected so many side deals that Seattle was going to have a bucket of extra NHL Draft picks – yes, they keep those in buckets.
Well, the party was fun, but we didn’t get big-name vets nor extra draft picks.
That led to the NHL Entry Draft where Seattle had seven picks and selected seven players. Matty Beniers was the prize, and Seattle snapped up a great player up with the No. 2 pick.
When the week ended, the Kraken had a full roster of players, seven new prospects, and a ton of cap space to keep tinkering with the roster. Here’s a look back at the week that was.
Expanding on Kraken Expansion Draft
We didn’t get the side deals we were hoping for, and Ron Francis didn’t spend all his money loading up on veterans with big contracts. In the end, the Kraken went young.
Seattle has two players over 30 years of age – Jordan Eberle (31) and Mark Giordano (37) – and 17 who are 25 or younger. The defense looks solid with Giordano, Adam Larsson, and the big Jamie Oleksiak. Up front there are solid vets like Yanni Gourde, Eberle, Joonas Donskoi, and Jared McCann. Most of the scoring is on the wings, and at first glance, the Kraken are a bit of a donut team – missing centers.
But before we start planning for the 2022 NHL Draft lottery, let’s wait to see the finished product.
“We’ll see what things happen here over the next few months, but you know we like to say this is kind of a snapshot in time,” Francis said following the Expansion Draft at Gas Works Park. “There’s still opportunities. We’re going to draft on Friday night with the second pick overall and we might get a guy that can step into our lineup.
“Then on Monday, you have the qualifying offers that are necessary for restricted free agents and there might be some guys that shake loose. We certainly will be looking at free agency next week and then, you know, as you go through the summer there are teams that have to get cap compliant to start the season. We have some cap space, and we’ll look at taking advantage of that if we can.”
So, not done.
Francis has over $30 million in cap space available to him on Tuesday, the day before NHL free agency opens on Wednesday morning. That doesn’t mean he’s going to go on a shopping spree by throwing money at every top free agent on the market, but there will be additions to the roster.
Only three teams have more cap space and two of them – Detroit and Buffalo – are in serious rebuilds and are unlikely to be big-time buyers this week. Seattle will be able to offer a potential free agent more money than their competitors.
On top of that, the Expansion Draft show at Gas Works demonstrated to the league how amazing Seattle is and how rabid the fans are before one puck has been sent deep. The Kraken should be attractive.
Getting playing time and stepping up
Joining an expansion team means some players will be getting more playing time and will be put in better positions than with their previous teams. Example No. 1 is William Karlsson with the Vegas Golden Knights.
When Vegas selected Karlsson from Columbus, the center had never scored more than nine goals in any season. Year one in Vegas? 43.
That’s not to say that Seattle has a Karlsson sitting on its roster now, but there are some players who could benefit from more minutes in an elevated role.
One player to watch here is Morgan Geekie.
Morgan Geekie has scored everywhere he’s played. (Checkers photo)
Playing mostly in the bottom six on a talented Hurricanes roster last year, the 23-year-old center scored just three times along with six points. But he’s scored every other stop in his career. In junior, with the Tri-City Americans in Kennewick, Geekie had back-to-back 30-plus goal seasons before turning pro.
In the AHL, he has two full seasons with the Charlotte Checkers in which he scored 19 and 22 goals respectively.
He has a chance in Seattle to move up the forward rotation.
Geekie was relegated to just under 10 minutes a game last season and only generated .8 shots per game. But, in the AHL when he was a top-six player in 2019-20 – his best year – he produced 2.34 shots a contest and shot an impressive 17 percent. In his rookie year in the AHL, he shot 20 percent.
The kid can shoot.
Even in his limited role last year in the NHL he shot a healthy 10 percent.
His underlying numbers with the Hurricanes last year are also encouraging as he was a positive possession player and had an expected goal (xG) percentage of 52 percent.
What will his offensive numbers be if he gets 15 or 20 minutes a game with the Kraken?
Matty Ice first-ever Kraken draft pick
There was not a whole lot of drama at the top of Friday’s NHL Draft. Buffalo took Owen Power as nearly every single person predicted, and that cleared Seattle to select Michigan center Matty Beniers.
It’s an exciting pick. Not only is he the first Kraken drafted but he’s a player that checks off a lot of boxes. He can score, play defense, and make his linemates better.
“I think what tipped the scales into his favor is his unbelievable enthusiasm and work ethic,” Kraken director of amateur scouting Robert Kron said. “He’s got a never quit attitude and his energy level is very high at the beginning of the shift or late in the shift. He plays a very strong game in all three zones, and on top of that will show that he’s got incredible offensive upside as well.”
Beniers was also part of history as never before had two teammates gone first and second overall. By the end of the night, Michigan had four players selected over the first five picks. That includes Luke Hughes, who will be a freshman at Michigan next year.
With a loaded lineup, the Wolverines could be favorites to win the Frozen Four. That is, of course, assuming all four guys come back to college which is now the big question for Seattle. Will Beniers sign before the season or return for one more college year and sign with the Kraken in the spring?
“Honestly, I really don’t know what exactly the best thing is for me next year,” Beniers said Friday in the Zoom call with media. “Whether it’s going back or going to play for the Kraken.
“Obviously, I think that’d be really exciting to get to play with the Kraken. I think going back another year to keep building confidence [would be important] … But I think at the end of the day it’s what is the right thing for me to do as a hockey player and as a person?”
You have to love that maturity.
Will Beniers eventually wear a ‘C’?
Leadership is a big thing in hockey and the captain holds a special place within a team. Beniers has been praised by scouts as a leader with the Michigan team.
He was impressive in his press tour after the draft and has ‘future captain’ written all over him. There are different types of leaders. Some will be vocal, with a lot of yelling and screaming and maybe smashing something, while others will lead by example.
Both can be effective if the right guy is in place.
“I’m grateful that other people see me as a leader,” Beniers said. “I think for me it’s just being a guy that people are going to approach. It’s setting the example for other guys, whether it’s off the ice, on the ice, or in the locker room.
“For me, the way I lead I think it’s not as much talking, saying things people already know. It’s kind of going out there and showing them, showing them by example, lead by example, and doing the hard stuff out there. Hopefully, guys will follow, and I think that’s how to build really good team chemistry.”
What a great answer.
Draft day two
If you watched and managed to stay awake during the unbearable length of NHL Draft day two, you saw the Kraken select six more players in rounds two through seven.
Perhaps the most intriguing pick for Seattle came in the third round when the Kraken selected center Ryan Winterton from the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs. The OHL did not play last season due to COVID-19 which meant Winterton had no film or live viewings to impress scouts until he played seven games for Canada at the U18 World Championships.
He did play in 53 games as a 16-year-old for Hamilton in 2019-20 and scored 12 goals and 23 points which are impressive numbers for a rookie in the OHL. It’s one of the more fascinating aspects of this year’s draft as amateur leagues were up and down, shortened, and in Winterton’s case, canceled.
Hamilton rookie Ryan Winterton scores his 10th goal of the season.
But, reading the wrap-ups from the myriad of draft experts, Winterton is a guy that consistently was praised by those that have seen him play as a great pick by the Kraken. So, tune in to some Bulldogs games this coming season.
Best moment of the week that was for the Kraken
There was so much good that went down over the past week in Kraken land. They have a roster and at the Expansion Draft party, there were six actual NHL players wearing actual Kraken jerseys. It doesn’t get much better than that. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.
But, the best moment of the week was witnessed by just a handful of people.
Just prior to the Expansion Draft show starting, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman held a pre-draft media scrum with the local press. The scrum was held behind the stage right at the Lake Union water’s edge. The handful of reporters and television cameras attracted the kayakers and boaters that were out enjoying the sunny weather.
As is tradition, the kayakers booed Bettman. Always willing to play the heel, Bettman turned around and yelled to the booers, “That just proves that you are true hockey fans.” The result? The boos turned to cheers and a ‘Gary!’ chant broke out from the kayakers, paddle boarders, and a nearby boat.
There it is! The Seattle Kraken officially selected Matthew Beniers as their first-ever pick in the NHL Entry Draft on Friday. Since Seattle was awarded the No. 2 overall spot in the Draft Lottery back on June 2, scouts and pundits have been zeroing in on defenseman Owen Power and his University of Michigan teammate Beniers as the likely top-two picks. The Buffalo Sabres, who held the top pick, and the Kraken both took the chalk.
Beniers, an 18-year-old center from Hingham, Mass., is regarded as perhaps the most NHL-ready player in this pool of draft-eligible players, thanks to his powerful skating, relentless approach, and willingness to compete at both ends of the ice. Making him extra valuable is his natural ability as a center, typically the hardest position at which to find elite talent.
After Wednesday’s Expansion Draft, it became immediately clear that the Kraken’s initial roster is strong on the blue line but lacks depth up front and especially in the middle. According to Kraken general manager Ron Francis in his pre-draft availability, this didn’t factor into the decision to take Beniers.
“We really haven’t drafted anybody to this point on the amateur side,” Francis said. “So, I think for us it’s getting the best player available at that position No. 2. [We’re] not really concerned about position as much as just the player himself.” Still, there’s no question that Seattle’s current setup is heavy on defense, so whether this was a factor or not, it should pay dividends in the relatively near future to get some center talent in their very shallow pipeline.
Beniers really emerged as a future top-line NHLer this year with his appearances as the only draft-eligible player on Team USA at both the World Junior Championship and the IIHF World Championship. At the WJC, he had a goal and two assists in seven games, and at the World Championship—where he was competing against current NHL players—he posted a goal and an assist in six games.
At Michigan, he was a point-per-game player as a freshman and before that, he was at or near a point per game at every stage of his career with the US National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich. It’s not really his scoring touch that makes him so good, though; it’s his all-around play in every zone on the ice. He never quits, never cheats, and does as much in the defensive zone as he does in the offensive zone.
Like Power, it remains to be seen if Beniers will make the jump to immediately turn pro or if he will return for a second year with the Wolverines. Amongst the trio of Power, Beniers, and Kent Johnson, it was a common theme at the top prospects media availability on July 6 that those players do not feel like they’ve gotten the true college experience at Michigan to this point, so take that as you will.
Whenever he does make the jump, the Kraken will have a potential cornerstone player for many years to come in Matty Beniers.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
After years of speculative protection lists and reading hundreds of mock Seattle Kraken Expansion Drafts, it is your turn to predict who the Kraken will select! This is your chance to fill out an Expansion Draft roster based on the actual protection list that was published on Sunday.
The concept is simple. Pick one player on every team, and the fan that has the most accurate draft based on what the Kraken actually select will win “valuable prizes” (or just a t-shirt).
To help you with navigating the players available, I have made an Expansion Draft tool kit for you to reference when selecting your team.
When you have no skin in the game, it’s always a bit unsatisfying to see a championship trophy awarded to the team that everyone expects to win it. Watching the Tampa Bay Lightning hoist its second Stanley Cup (and then smash it, which is hilarious) in as many tries was no surprise to anyone in the hockey world. But anecdotally, it feels safe to say that the majority of neutral fans were still pulling for the Canadiens to perform a minor miracle in the Final.
For Seattle Kraken supporters, it really should have made no difference which team ended up victorious. The real win is that the 2020-21 season is now in the rearview, and with that finality comes a new beginning for the Emerald City.
You may be inclined to say, “Good riddance, now let’s go party at Gas Works,” but before we fully move onto the next stage of this journey—which is sure to be a wild one—there are some important lessons that Seattle can learn from the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Lesson 1 – Master the salary cap and CBA
You’re annoyed that the Lightning’s playoff roster was $18 million over what would have been the salary cap if the rules had remained the same as the regular season, right? Well, as the saying goes, don’t hate the player, hate the game. Everything Tampa Bay did was completely within the rules agreed upon by the league and the NHLPA.
We’ve seen this movie before
There’s interesting and somewhat ironic context to consider here. In 2015, Patrick Kane broke his clavicle in February and was placed on long-term injured reserve, taking his cap hit off Chicago’s books for the rest of the regular season. General manager Stan Bowman then made several trades, pushing the team right back to the cap.
Fast forward a few months. The regular season ends, Kane is cleared to play just in time for the playoffs, and the Blackhawks roll to another Stanley Cup win while playing way over what would have been the salary cap. Sound familiar?
Well, guess who Chicago’s opponent was in that Final. Bingo! It was Tampa Bay!
At the time, Julien BriseBois was serving as assistant general manager under Steve Yzerman. The Bolts brass certainly didn’t like that the Blackhawks had a seemingly unfair amount of superstar talent, but the ’Hawks showed current Lightning GM BriseBois and his staff of brilliantly evil henchpeople a loophole they did not forget.
Frankly, fans of other teams that are irked about Tampa Bay successfully executing the old Chicago Shuffle to add superstars at just the right time should be more upset that their own respective teams didn’t figure out a way to pull off something similar.
Also, in defense of the Lightning, the fact that they built a squad that can go an entire regular season without its best offensive player and still be one of the best teams in the league says a lot about how well they managed. They added talent to an already talented and pricey team and recognized that the opportunities to win Stanley Cups are fleeting.
The Kraken have leaders who can pull this off
From a Kraken point of view, the lesson here is to use every angle available to maximize cap space. Assistant general manager Ricky Olczyk was hired in part for his deep knowledge of the collective bargaining agreement. In fact, he confirmed to the Sound Of Hockey Podcast in 2020 that he even occasionally sleeps with a copy of the agreement within arm’s reach, just in case something comes up in the middle of the night. Seattle is in good hands on that front.
It’s also well known that general manager Ron Francis has the go-ahead to spend to the salary cap right off the bat. It’s not in the team’s best interest to actually do this right away, because some space will be needed if the team is truly competitive in the first couple years. Still, a time will come when finagling will be needed to improve the team, and the Lightning have written the book on how to squeeze every last ounce out of the salary cap. When they aren’t memorizing the CBA, the Kraken front office should probably read that book.
Lesson 2 – Draft and develop exceptional players
This second lesson is a bit of a no-brainer, but it feels important to mention. The majority of Seattle’s inaugural roster will be constructed through the July 21 Expansion Draft, but there will be a good chunk of players selected who are either on expiring deals or won’t even end up playing for the team. The real long-term health of the organization relies almost entirely on how the Kraken perform at the NHL Entry Draft in the coming years.
The Bolts are not that far removed from a couple of pretty ugly seasons. They returned to prominence after a bit of a dip by building an exceptionally talented core that was almost all drafted by the organization, including Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, Anthony Cirelli, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat, and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Not only did they hit the jackpot on a whole host of selections, the Lightning also managed to spread the wealth across the roster positionally, creating depth at forward and defense and finding a dominant force to play in net. The general philosophy is to take the best player available in the early rounds, and that will be the approach of the Kraken initially. But down the road, there’s something to be said about having an outstanding player or two at every position.
Lesson 3 – Patience is a virtue
Remember this tweet?
We don’t have any words and we know you don’t want to hear them.
We understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness. Everything you’re feeling – we get it.
This isn’t the ending we imagined, and certainly not the one we wanted. Thank you for being there the entire way.
It was sent just two years ago by the team after Tampa Bay was swept out of the first round of the 2019 playoffs by the Columbus Blue Jackets, despite having one of the best regular seasons by any team in NHL history. This was also after losing in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, then coming close again with losses in the Conference Finals in 2016 and 2018.
The point is, if you have the a great core of players in place and they don’t immediately win it all, they still learn from the experience. The same can be said of the front office and the coaching staff, who will constantly be trying to find ways to make the team better. Draft a great core of talent, pepper in some deft veteran signings and acquisitions, and let them grow together.
Seattle may not win in year one, or even years two, three, or four. But it’s all part of the process, and long-term success should be the goal here.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
