While general manager Ron Francis tries hard to keep his coaching search under wraps, it’s very likely that his top choices to become the Seattle Kraken’s first head coach are still under contract somewhere else.
Back in November, Kraken ownership reportedly gave the front office permission to hire a coach whenever it felt ready. Last month Francis said he expects a decision by the end of the second quarter and is patiently waiting to see in “the next month or two” who will be available (coaches looking for work, on expiring contracts or “other situations that may be looking to make a change,” i.e., soon to be fired). Clearly, if Francis’ first choice had already been available, the Kraken would have hired him by now.
Another quality that’s not necessary, but will certainly help, is Francis’ close ties and familiarity with coaching candidates. After playing 23 seasons in the NHL and working another 13 years in NHL front offices, Francis has accumulated quite a lengthy list of connections.
Just look at some Kraken hockey operations personnel, for example. Assistant GM Ricky Olczyk and pro scout Mark Hunter worked for the Hurricanes when Francis held front office roles in Carolina. Assistant GM Jason Botterill worked alongside Francis on Hockey Canada’s management team for the 2019 World Ice Hockey Championship. Director of player personnel Robert Kron, director of amateur scouting Norm Maciver and pro scout Stu Barnes were NHL teammates with Francis. Pro scout Jon Goodwin was Francis’ junior hockey teammate on the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds.
It’s been said we’re all linked to everyone else by six degrees of separation. But if you want the plumb NHL job as the Seattle Kraken franchise’s first head coach, good luck if you’re more than one degree removed from Francis.
Unfortunately for the Kraken, these notable Francis connections won’t be available: Florida Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett, Washington Capitals coach Peter Laviolette, Philadelphia Flyers coach Alain Vigneault and Minnesota Wild coach Dean Evason.
Inasmuch as it would be refreshing to hire a new face instead of the usual suspects who end up being recycled around the league, Seattle will need a seasoned coach who can command respect and get results from a veteran-laden lineup. Comments by Francis back this up, and it would take an incredible audition and interview for a coach without NHL head coaching experience to blow away the Kraken.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Saturday, and it would be nice to get the new coach involved on player assessments well ahead of the July 21 Expansion Draft. So here’s a rundown of the Kraken’s coaching candidates, divided into three groups: Francis connections, backup plans and longshots. NHL head coaching records are in parentheses.
Friends of Francis
Rod Brind’Amour (120-66-20 in three seasons with Carolina)
Brind’Amour coached the Hurricanes to the Eastern Conference finals in 2019, the conference semifinals in 2020 and first place in the Central Division this year. Carolina’s 80 points are tied with Vegas for most in the NHL through Tuesday night. He is the first Hurricanes coach to make three consecutive playoffs and is a front-runner for the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year. Yet, Carolina has bewilderingly dragged out negotiations on a contract extension and might lose him after this season.
Recent reports have the two sides getting closer to an agreement, and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has said Brind’Amour won’t re-sign unless his coaching and training staff also get new deals. But the longer these negotiations take, the chances increase for the Kraken to swoop in and land the best man for their job.
Brind’Amour was Francis’ teammate on the Hurricanes from 2000-01 to 2003-04 and succeeded Francis as Carolina’s captain. He was also an assistant coach for Carolina when Francis held various front office roles, including GM and director of hockey operations.
John Stevens (171-148-43 in seven seasons with Philadelphia and Los Angeles)
In his second season as head coach, Stevens took the Flyers to the 2008 Eastern Conference finals but hasn’t won a playoff round since.
As an assistant coach in L.A., Stevens helped the Kings win two Cups and became a highly sought-after head coaching candidate. After the Kings fired him from his head coaching duties early in the 2018-19 season, Stevens has been an assistant coach with the Dallas Stars for the past two seasons.
Stevens helped the Stars reach the Cup Finals last season, but they missed the playoffs this year. He’s been in charge of the forwards and the team’s 5-on-5 offense, which ranks 21st in the NHL with 101 goals.
Stevens was a member of the 1990-91 Hartford Whalers along with Francis.
Todd Nelson (17-25-9 in one season with Edmonton)
Nelson played only three NHL games, but one of them was alongside Francis on the 1991-92 Penguins.
After playing many years in the minor leagues, Nelson paid his dues coaching in the American Hockey League and United Hockey League. Nelson served as a head coach for eight seasons in the AHL, winning the Calder Cup championship in 2017 with the Grand Rapids Griffins.
His only NHL head coaching job was on an interim basis for the Oilers after Dallas Eakins was fired 31 games into the 2014-15 season.
Nelson just completed his third season as an assistant coach for the Dallas Stars where he works on the power play with fellow assistant Derek Laxdal. The Stars’ power play ranks fifth in the NHL (23.6 percent) this season.
Rick Tocchet (178-200-60 in six seasons with Tampa Bay and Arizona)
Tocchet was a formidable power forward in his playing days but hasn’t had close to the same success behind the bench. His only playoff appearance came during last year’s pandemic bubble where the Coyotes lost in five games to the Colorado Avalanche in the first round (though they beat the Nashville Predators in the play-in round).
Arizona dumped Tocchet on Sunday after four seasons. His reputation for what Friedman describes as “one of the best around at handling players that are not easy to reach” could get the attention of his former teammate on the 1992 Stanley Cup champions. Francis and Tocchet played together on the Pittsburgh Penguins from 1991-92 to 1993-94 and in juniors with The Soo.
Paul Maurice (761-670-125 – and 99 ties – in 23 seasons with Hartford/Carolina, Toronto and Winnipeg)
Winnipeg was cruising nicely through most of this season, but a recent slump that had the Jets losing nine out of their past 11 games raises questions about Maurice’s job security. A quick playoff exit against the potent Edmonton Oilers just might bring an end to Maurice’s eight-season run in Winnipeg.
Among active NHL coaches, only Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper has been in his current job longer than Maurice. Fair or not, the shelf life of hockey coaches doesn’t last very long.
Maurice is well-respected around the league, has his players’ backs, and won’t have to wait long for a new job if he hits the market. He coached Carolina when Francis returned to play for the Hurricanes/Whalers organization from 1998-99 to 2003-04.
Francis and Vellucci were teammates on Hartford in 1987-88, and Vellucci served as assistant GM and director of player development in Francis’ front office with the Hurricanes from 2014 to 2017.
Plan B coaching options
Gerard Gallant (270-216-51 – and four ties – in nine seasons with Columbus, Florida and Vegas)
Gallant is high atop most everyone’s Kraken coaching list after he took the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final in their first season.
Knowing how to squeeze the most out of a first-year expansion team is invaluable. But he’s been unemployed for a little more than a year. If the Kraken really valued and wanted Gallant, they could have landed him by now. Being perceived by some as unwelcoming toward analytics doesn’t help his case with the progressive-minded Kraken either.
Mike Babcock (700-418-164 – and 19 ties – in 17 seasons with Anaheim, Detroit and Toronto)
Winning a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings and two Olympic gold medals with Canada speak for themselves. But Babcock’s history of mind games and questionable treatment of some players can’t be brushed aside. That and the $5.875 million per year he’s being paid to not coach the Maple Leafs through 2022-23 will likely be tough obstacles to overcome.
Travis Green (123-130-31 in four seasons with Vancouver)
Green’s Canucks improved every season until a sudden regression had them miss the playoffs this year. Vancouver’s surprising run to the 2020 Western Conference semifinals was probably more indicative of Green’s abilities than this year’s COVID-19 train wreck. Green’s contract ends after this season, and the Canucks’ baffling indecisiveness in re-signing him could end up sending a rising coaching star to Seattle.
Bruce Boudreau (567-302-115 in 14 seasons with Washington, Anaheim and Minnesota)
In his favor, the longtime coach has never had a losing season in the NHL and worked with Kraken director of hockey strategy and research Alex Mandrycky in Minnesota. Boudreau hasn’t won a playoff round since 2015, however.
We’ll have to see if the Kraken want Boudreau.
Claude Julien (667-445-152 – and 10 ties – in 19 seasons with Montreal, New Jersey and Boston)
Julien won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 and took them to the Cup Final again in 2013. But he hasn’t won a playoff round since 2014 and an emergency heart procedure caused Julien, 61, to miss part of the Canadiens’ 2020 postseason. Montreal fired him 18 games into this season after he couldn’t pull the team out of an early slump.
Rikard Gronborg
If the Kraken really like to do things differently, then hiring Gronborg would fit that model perfectly. The former national team coach for Sweden just completed his two-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League and reportedly has designs on landing an NHL job. New Jersey pursued him last year before hiring Lindy Ruff, and we can expect Gronborg’s name to be linked to more NHL coaching rumors.
Gronborg, who was an assistant coach for the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs in 2004-05, has won two World Championships and 16 medals for Sweden. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes the third European to coach in the NHL.
David Quinn (96-87-25 in three seasons with the New York Rangers)
Fresh off being fired Wednesday by the Rangers, Quinn should land a second chance somewhere after MSG chairman James Dolan got impatient with the team’s rebuild. Quinn’s background in college hockey (Boston University) sets him up better to work with younger players.
Longshots to be Kraken coach
John Tortorella (673-541-132 – and 37 ties – in 20 seasons with Tampa Bay, New York Rangers, Vancouver and Columbus)
Tortorella won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning and has had impressive results nearly everywhere he’s coached. But his old-school style and abrasiveness wouldn’t be a good fit in a new market. The Kraken coach needs to be on board for selling hockey to new fans, and Torts’ frequent condescending or curt responses to questions from the media won’t help.
Kirk Muller (80-80-27 in three seasons with Carolina)
In one of his first moves as Hurricanes GM in 2014, Francis fired Muller after he missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season. Have assistant and associate coaching gigs with St. Louis and Montreal since then made Muller better suited to lead an NHL team?
Dave Hakstol (134-101-42 in four seasons with Philadelphia)
Since he was fired by the Flyers, Hakstol has spent the past two seasons as an assistant coach with Toronto. He oversees penalty killing, which ranks 26th (79.9 percent) in the NHL. He never got out of the first round in two playoff appearances with the Flyers, but the former University of North Dakota coach could get another shot at a head coaching job in the NHL.
Hakstol and Francis worked together on Team Canada when Hakstol was an assistant for Alain Vigneault’s coaching staff at the 2019 World Championships.
Samuelsson first left the Kraken to become head coach of Leksands IF of the Swedish Hockey League in 2019-20. He previously coached MODO in Sweden for two seasons and was 39-29-8 as head coach of the Charlotte Checkers, Carolina’s AHL farm team, in 2016-17 when Francis was Hurricanes GM.
Francis has obviously aided Samuelsson’s coaching aspirations, but can the Kraken GM objectively determine if Samuelsson is ready to be an NHL head coach?
Jim Wilkie is a longtime Northwest journalist, former NHL editor and NHL Insider writer for ESPN.com, onetime GSHL All-Star, and SJHA hockey dad. Follow him on Twitter @jimwilkie.
The Seattle Kraken are going to select T.J. Oshie from the Washington Capitals in July’s Expansion Draft. At least that’s what media and message board punditocracy seem to have already determined.
It’s a presumption that makes sense on the surface.
Oshie has been a great NHLer for over 800 games, and his accomplishments are cemented in hockey fans’ memories. He’s an Olympic hero for his shootout antics during the 2014 games, he won a Stanley Cup with the Capitals and drank beer through his shirt. Just this past week he recorded an emotional hat trick, days after his beloved father passed away.
Simply put, he’s got cache.
Oh, and he also has a Northwest connection. In case you weren’t aware, Oshie grew up in Snohomish County before moving to Minnesota as a teenager to find more competitive hockey. Of course, if he’s exposed by the Capitals, the Kraken will select him for that local angle, right? Imagine the jersey sales and marketing opportuities.
But should they? What matters more, his local connection or his production on the ice? While Oshie being selected in the Expansion Draft would make for a nice story, the Kraken want to win.
Will selecting Oshie in the Draft help the Kraken market the team?
Oshie returning to his hometown would be a great narrative. The local kid leaves home as a teenager, achieves great success before returning home to lead the new NHL club in its infancy. It’s got a feel-good Disney movie written all over it.
The Kraken really don’t need help marketing the team, though.
They’ve sold out all their season tickets, built a waiting list of 60,000 people, and merchandise has been flying off the shelf – and that’s without jerseys being available.
Further, while the local hockey fans – of which there are plenty – are aware of who Oshie is and where he came from, the casual sports fan may not. If you randomly polled ten local Seattle sports fans, ones who don’t follow hockey but will root for all the hometown teams, how many will know Oshie’s name? Four? Three?
Still, his selection would be a story, one that every local and national hockey writer will write about in the post-draft excitement. The local news will produce features and Oshie will make the rounds on the local sports radio stations – stations that have mostly ignored the NHL to date.
That exposure will capture those six or seven casual sports fans who didn’t previously know him. They will relate to Oshie, connect with him, and it will help cement the Kraken into the local sports scene – plus, he’s already a Seahawks fan.
Is being a local product worth the Kraken taking T.J. Oshie at the Expansion Draft?
So, there is a benefit to having a local guy come back, but still, what about the production on the ice? After all, winning is the ultimate marketing tool. Nothing will excite the city better than putting out a competitive product early into the Kraken history.
Is Oshie’s production worthy of an Expansion pick from the Kraken?
Oshie will turn 35 two months into the upcoming season, but his play has not shown any decline at this stage of his career. In 53 games with Washington this season he’s scored 22 goals with 43 points.
Those numbers are on pace with the bulk of his career.
He can still shoot, and this year’s 20.8 percent shooting percentage is the second highest in his career, coming off a 19 percent mark the season prior. Throughout his time in the NHL he’s averaged just over two shots per game and is at that pace this year as well, showing no drop-off.
Oshie has only had one NHL season where his Corsi-For percentage was under 50 – this year he’s at 52 percent – and his expected goal (xG%) percentage this year is also 52, which is an increase from last season. Not only is he still driving possession but he’s creating chances for the Capitals.
Those are all great five-on-five numbers, but the Capitals use Oshie quite a bit on the power play, and that’s where he’s really come through. With Washington this year, he’s scored 13 power-play goals for a total of 17 points with the man advantage.
His salary is high, with four years left of a $5.7 million contract that would have the Kraken on the hook until he’s 39 if they were to select him at the Expansion Draft. That amount may be reasonable now, but will it in four years?
If they like the local angle, defenseman Brenden Dillon may also be available. He’s younger, cheaper, still productive, and his time as captain of the Seattle Thunderbirds was more recent. It’s not clear if he’s ever drunk beer through a jersey or t-shirt but Dillon would be a solid top-four defenseman for the Kraken.
Seattle could also consider a young goalie from Washington. Vitek Vanecek, 25, burst onto the scene as a rookie this year and is worth a look. He will likely be exposed (we think Ilya Samsonov gets protected, but if it’s the other way around, then Samsonov is also worth considering), and while he does not have a long NHL track record, Vanecek would be a promising young goalie that the Kraken could groom for the future.
In the end, the Kraken do not have to select Oshie. They have options when it comes to the Capitals, but Oshie will certainly be in the mix. While he is aging, he is still producing at a high level and would instantly become a fan favorite for the way he plays the game and carries himself off the ice.
General manager Ron Francis will weigh all the Oshie factors and have to decide if the salary is worth his age. The prospect is enticing and there is a strong chance that Oshie will be in Kraken colors this fall. If that does come to fruition, it will be because he can and will produce on the ice.
Last week, James Mirtle of The Athleticmentioned that Chris Driedger is a goalie of interest for the Seattle Kraken. Mirtle is hardly the first person to mention Driedger’s name in the same sentence with the Kraken, but he was the first to reference “sources.” Driedger is having a good season as a platooning goalie for the Florida Panthers and will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. This makes him an interesting candidate to be one of the inaugural season goalies for the Kraken.
My concern is Driedger has only seen limited action in the NHL and based on the small sample size, we might not have enough games to assess his long-term capabilities. When I think of older goalies with a small sample size, I immediately think of Scott Darling as a cautionary tale. Darling’s first 20-game season came when he was 26 years old.
Darling had two good seasons in Chicago as a platooning goalie over the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. He then signed a lucrative four-year contract with the Carolina Hurricanes where he struggled mightily and played just 51 games over the next two seasons. His contract was eventually bought out after the second year of the contract. Worth noting, Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis was the one who signed Darling, and there’s no question that this deal has lived on in his memory.
For this week’s data dump, I want to look at how Driedger stacks up to comparable goalies that entered the league around the same age as he is now.
Sizing up Chris Driedger
Chris Driedger will be turning 27 years old next week with 37 career NHL games under his belt. This year he has played 22 games with a .923 save percentage, 2.17 goals against average, and a record of 13-6-3. Last year he split time between the NHL and AHL, and when playing with the big club performed well in his 12 NHL games. Driedger also played one game in each of 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17 but remained in the minors for 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Goalie comparables
A goalie’s lifespan in the NHL is relatively short (that’s a post for another day). As such, coming into the league at 25+ years old is late in a goalie’s career. For the purpose of finding a sample of older goalies that entered the league late, I am going to isolate all netminders who were at least 25 years old at the start of their first season where they played at least 20 NHL games.
There were 33 goalies that fit this profile. Driedger has the highest career save percentage of the group, but that could be a bit misleading considering a lot of these players went on to create larger sample sizes and are either further along in their careers or are already out of the league. Naturally, goalie skill and therefore save percentage declines toward the end of a career.
Trends over time
Now that we have our comp list, let us try to visualize the trends of these goalies’ careers. First, we look at how many goalies would continue playing at least one game in the NHL after their first 20-game season.
Three goalies played 20+ NHL games in their first season and then none the very next season.
To put a finer point on it, let us look at the number of goalies that played at least 10 games in the subsequent seasons of the 33 comparable players.
The drop between year one and two does not seem material, but the drop in year three is significant. Only 36% of the 33 players would play 10 more NHL games just three seasons later. Given this information, any deal you sign with a goalie from this age group should have a limited term of under three years.
Adding save percentage
We will now add save percentage into the mix to see how well these goalies performed in the games played.
Now we can start to paint a picture of who was/is successful following their first season of 20 games or more. For some of the players that are still active, we may not have enough service time to get a true determination of whether they have been successful following their first 20-game season.
I went ahead and bucketed all 33 players into four categories:
Success
Ok
Cautionary tale
Too early to tell
This was completely subjective and was based on how many seasons the goalies played a minimum of 10 games, the number of games they played, and their save percentage.
Here is the count of goalies in each category.
If you strip out the “Too early to tell” group, only five out of the remaining 22 goalies were a success. More succinctly, only 23% of the goalies in this category are determined to be successful.
This analysis still lacks statistical context and goalie scout insights. The broader point is that with only 37 NHL games in his career, Driedger’s long-term success is not a slam dunk for Seattle and the team should proceed with caution, should they draft and sign him to a longer-term deal.
Let me know your thoughts. How would you predict Chris Driedger’s viability on being a No. 1 starter in the league?
During the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, Vegas made 10 side deals that netted the Golden Knights an additional six players, 10 Entry Draft picks, and signing rights to one player. Such Expansion Draft side deals will be an important element of the upcoming Seattle Expansion Draft. We went ahead and tiered all 30 NHL Teams that are participating in the 2021 Expansion Draft into four buckets based on the likelihood of the team making a side deal.
We’re starting in the Eastern Conference.
Major factors in determining if a side deal can happen
Too many players to protect. This is where a team has too many quality players and not enough spots on the protection lists. Example: In 2017, the Minnesota Wild had an abundance of defensemen they wanted to protect. The Wild traded Alex Tuch and a third-round pick in exchange for Vegas selecting Erik Haula in the Expansion Draft. This prevented the Golden Knights from selecting Matt Dumba, who was unprotected in the 2017 Expansion Draft.
Bad contracts. In this scenario, a team might have a player with a high annual average value (AAV) cap hit, but the player might not be performing at a level expected based on the AAV. Example: In 2017, Columbus traded their 2017 NHL Entry Draft first-round pick and David Clarkson for Vegas selecting William Karlsson. In this case, Clarkson was the bad contract and the combination of the draft pick and Karlsson was the incentive Columbus provided to Vegas for taking the bad contract in the Expansion Draft.
Reduction of cap hit. Like the bad contract scenario, this is where a team wants to reduce its salary cap obligation for the next season to create space for current and future players. This was not prevalent in 2017 but may be very important in the Kraken Expansion Draft due to a flat salary cap caused by the pandemic.
Likely side deal candidates
Tampa Bay Lightning – Heading into this season, Tampa Bay was already doing some salary cap gymnastics to be compliant before the season opener. Nikita Kucherov had surgery that landed him on the long-term injured reserve list (LTIR). This enabled the Lightning to move his $9,500,000 salary cap off the books to keep the team in compliance. Kucherov is expected to be healthy next season and the Lightning will need to move money off the payroll to be compliant for the 2021-22 season.
Possible side deal candidates
Boston Bruins – How the Bruins approach the Expansion Draft is anyone’s guess. They have several young players in Trent Frederic, Jakub Zboril, and Jeremy Lauzon. Plus, they have some vets that are making a strong case to be protected in Nick Ritchie and Craig Smith. Three of those five players could be exposed and could create an opportunity for a side deal to protect them.
Buffalo Sabres – Buffalo will want to offload the bad Jeff Skinner contract, but with six seasons remaining on Skinner’s contract, I do not think the Sabres could offer enough to Seattle for them to take it on. However, with only two years remaining on Kyle Okposo’s contract, the Sabres might want to offer some incentives to the Kraken that will create more cap space in Buffalo.
Morgan Geekie was a third-round pick by Ron Francis in the 2017 NHL Draft (Checkers photo)
Carolina Hurricanes – Two months ago the Hurricanes looked like a prime candidate for a side deal, but it now appears Dougie Hamilton will not be signing an extension with the Canes. This will allow them to protect Jake Bean. The Canes also sent Haydn Fleury to the Ducks at the trade deadline, so the Expansion Draft options suddenly do not look nearly as appetizing. It is possible that the Canes offer up a draft pick to Seattle if the Kraken do not select Morgan Geekie in the Expansion Draft.
Florida Panthers – At the beginning of the season the Florida Panthers looked like one of the teams with not much to offer the Kraken in the Expansion Draft. Several players are having career years, though, and have made the protected list a bit trickier for Florida. The Panthers further complicated matters for themselves by acquiring Sam Bennett at the trade deadline, and the list of candidates for protection at forward is now a bit crowded. They might want to encourage Seattle to take on a big contract like Patric Hornqvist at $5 million a year by offering up a draft pick to influence the decision.
New York Islanders – As we see it, the Islanders will expose Josh Bailey or Kieffer Bellows in the forward category and either Nick Leddy or Scott Mayfield on defense. General manager Lou Lamoriello might consider offering up a sweetener to influence the Kraken’s decision here if there is a player he prioritizes over another.
Philadelphia Flyers – Signing Scott Laughton to a contract extension last month really threw a wrench into forecasting the exposure list for the Flyers. They will need to expose three of the following forwards: Jakub Voracek, Nolan Patrick, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and James van Riemsdyk. The Flyers might want Seattle to take on some salary cap and offer up some incentive for Seattle selecting Voracek or van Riemsdyk, both of whom have salary cap hits over $7 million per year compared to Patrick and Aube-Kubel’s cap hits of ~$1 million per year.
Less likely side deal candidates
Montreal Canadiens – The Canadiens approach to the Expansion Draft hinges on their desire and ability to sign any of their big three pending UFAs: Joel Armia, Phillip Danault, and Tomas Tatar. Signing two of the three would create an exposure issue for Montreal. It might also be possible for the Canadiens to offer up some draft picks to the Kraken for them not to select platooning goalie Jake Allen who has played roughly half of Montreal’s games this season. It seems like a long shot for any of these scenarios to play out.
New Jersey Devils – The Devils continue to rebuild and do not seem like a team that needs to shed any salary. PK Subban’s contract is high at $9 million a year, but he has had a bounce-back season. And with only one year remaining, there is no sense of urgency to get Subban off the books.
New York Rangers – Colin Blackwell might be having an impressive season, but if he is exposed, we do not anticipate the Rangers offering up anything extra to protect him.
Ottawa Senators – The Senators are positioned very well to not lose much in the Expansion Draft and are unlikely candidates for a side deal.
Pittsburgh Penguins – There are a couple players of note that could be exposed in the Expansion Draft, but Pittsburgh is unlikely to part with draft picks primarily because they don’t have many left in the next two years.
Toronto Maple Leafs – The Leafs situation is a bit complicated. They need theoretical space for re-signing Zach Hyman and/or signing a UFA starting goalie not named Frederik Andersen. If they want to sign Hyman and a higher-caliber goalie, then they are going to need to move money off their payroll to create cap space. My feeling is that Hyman will not be re-signed and therefore no side deal with Seattle will really be needed.
Washington Capitals – The only way the Caps make a side deal is if they want to create some cap space, and we just do not see any obvious bad contracts on the Capitals roster to move.
Close to zero chance of a side deal
Columbus Blue Jackets – The Blue Jackets do not have much to offer Seattle in the Expansion Draft and their salary cap position seems fine.
Detroit Red Wings – The Wings are another team with very little to offer to the Kraken and do not need to worry about the salary cap anytime soon.
Tomorrow I will run through the Western Conference teams of possible Expansion Draft side deal candidates.
It’s easy and probably overly simplistic to suggest that the Seattle Kraken go all out in signing unrestricted free agents (UFA) at July’s Expansion Draft. If Seattle were to agree to terms with one of those players in the team’s 48-hour exclusive negotiating window, that guy would become its pick from the Expansion Draft list.
But should the Kraken explore this route? Are there players available that would be worth it?
The only sensible answer is maybe.
While there are big-named UFA’s out there, like Alex Ovechkin and Taylor Hall, the chances of them being signed by Seattle are pretty slim. In fact, signing any UFA’s at the Expansion Draft is far from a given for the Kraken. Looking back at Vegas’ Expansion Draft, the Golden Knights signed one UFA, Deryk Engelland, at the Draft.
It’s a different NHL world this time around, however. The flat salary cap has teams dealing with tighter budgets and Seattle may be able to offer more lucrative deals.
The most likely scenarios for this to happen come from teams who don’t have attractive unprotected players for the Kraken to simply pick with their Expansion selection. It’s also possible that from these clubs, Seattle chooses to pick a player who is set to become a free agent and simply allows them to walk – something that Vegas did with three players.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t options that warrant kicking the tires on. We have a list of some interesting UFA players that are worth exploring. Will they sign all of them? No, but these players would be quality additions for Ron Francis and his crew to consider.
Potential Seattle Kraken UFA targets at the Expansion Draft
Tyson Barrie, D, Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers brought Barrie in during the offseason, signing him to a one-year, $3.75 million deal, and have reaped the benefits. Barrie possibly could have found more money elsewhere, but the gamble has paid off for both player and team.
Barrie, who has always been a scoring defenseman, is having one of his best seasons in the NHL with Edmonton. His 39 points through Edmonton’s first 46 games match his point totals in 70 games with Toronto the previous year. Barrie has thrice topped the 50-point mark and is on that kind of pace this year.
connor mcdavid gets his league leading 50th point of the year with this filthy feed to tyson barrie, who puts the oilers up 2-1! –@zjlaingpic.twitter.com/fKcgGsXqAo
— Oilersnation.com, Oily Since ‘07 (@OilersNation) March 13, 2021
So why should Seattle consider Barrie as an Expansion Draft UFA?
Having a puck-moving defenseman who can contribute offensively and man the power play is essential in today’s NHL. Barrie is that guy and if signed by the Kraken would most likely move to the top of their defensive pairings when you consider the other defensemen who may be available.
He does have some flaws – most notably the play in his own end. Barrie has been a minus player for the majority of his career, but as we know, the plus-minus number can be deceiving. Digging further, he’s coming off two seasons where he topped the 50-percent Corsi-for number. This year he’s a hair under 50 and is on the ice for more scoring chances against than he is for which could be a concern.
With Toronto, a team that has been challenged defensively, the numbers were better and he was a positive player in terms of scoring chances.
Coming off a strong offensive season probably means a pay bump and term for Barrie, but at 29 years old he’ll be relatively affordable with productive years still to come. Edmonton could look to re-sign Barrie but doing so would require them to protect him and risk exposing a young defenseman like Ethan Bear.
Other Oilers options
Barrie may be the top option from Edmonton. Oscar Klefbom is a player who has been hurt all year, and if the Oilers can’t get an injury waiver for him, they may gamble that Seattle would balk at an injured player. If healthy, he’s a better option than Barrie but also likely protected. Otherwise, Seattle is looking at younger, less proven guys like Caleb Jones on defense or former first-round pick Tyler Benson.
Chris Driedger, G, Florida Panthers
The 26-year-old Driedger has been a pleasant surprise for the Panthers this year and a big reason they’re in a race for the Discover Central top spot. Coming into the season he had 12 NHL games under his belt but caught fire and is out-playing Sergei Bobrovsky, whom Florida is paying $10 million a year through the end of time.
Driedger’s save percentage of .923 tops Bobrovsky’s .905 and his $850K-per-year pay check makes him a bargain. Driedger will be in for a raise, but who can pay him more than Ron Francis and the Seattle Kraken?
Florida has a logjam in the net and with Bobrovsky taking up such a huge cap hit, the team won’t be able to pay Driedger. After Driedger, the Panthers have the heralded Spencer Knight waiting in the wings to be the next goalie, making Driedger expendable.
There will be goalies available elsewhere in the Expansion Draft that the Kraken could look at. They need three and based on this season, Driedger would be among the top guys they could rope in.
The biggest question surrounding Driedger is if he can be trusted. He has not played a lot of NHL hockey and spent most of his pro career bouncing around the minors from the AHL and ECHL. Goalies are a different breed and take longer to develop. Driedger is still relatively young and if the Kraken feel that this season is proof of the player he’s going to be, he’d be a UFA worth going after at the Draft.
Other Panthers options
The Panthers aren’t going to offer too many attractive players for Seattle at the Expansion Draft. They acquired Sam Bennett at the trade deadline, and while he was a target on Calgary’s roster, he most likely will be protected by Florida. Otherwise, Seattle is looking at guys like Radko Gudas and Markus Nutivaara which makes Driedger a more desirable option.
Linus Ullmark, G, Buffalo Sabres
Another option at goalie, Ullmark is a year older than Driedger and has a longer NHL resume to consider. He’s in the final year of a $2.6 million contract and may want to escape the mess of Buffalo for greener pastures with the expansion Kraken.
Ullmark has appeared in 117 games with the Sabres and his save percentage has increased the last three seasons as his playing time has risen. While he’s not an elite goaltender, he’s been good and has been stuck on a bad team for the entirety of his tenure.
He also has a Kraken connection as he worked with Kraken pro scout Andrew Allen when Allen served as Buffalo’s goaltending coach. Can Seattle cash in on that to lure him away?
Buffalo most likely would want to sign Ullmark and could do so prior to the Expansion Draft. They have cap room and no other strong goaltending options. If the Kraken is interested, they would have to bank on Ullmark wanting a new home in order to make it happen.
Other Sabres options
The Sabres added Anders Bjork in the Taylor Hall deal at the deadline but most likely will protect him now. That doesn’t leave too many exciting options from Buffalo. Guys like Kyle Okposo, Will Borgen, or Cody Eakin are other options but don’t move the needle much.
Ryan Murray, D, New Jersey Devils
It feels like a lifetime ago when Murray was selected second overall in the NHL Entry Draft from the Everett Silvertips. That was in 2012 and while he’s been a solid, two-way defenseman, he’s been plagued by injuries. In his eight NHL seasons he’s played more than 60 games only three times.
He was traded from Columbus to New Jersey this offseason and has stayed healthy, playing in 41 games so far. Murray has 12 points but scoring isn’t really his main strength. He’ll never light up the scoresheet but he’s good in his own end and has been that with the Devils this season.
Murray’s underlying stats are even for the most part, and he would provide the Kraken with an experienced blueliner.
At 27 years old, he still has good hockey in him, and while he’s coming off a $4.6 million contract, it’s possible that the Kraken could get him at the Expansion Draft on a similar, if not cheaper, UFA deal. The Devils could look to re-sign Murray, but they already have a good deal of cap space tied up in defensemen P.K. Subban and Damon Severson.
Other Devils options
The Devils could dangle Subban and his $9 million a year contract in front of the Kraken. While he’s a big name, Subban’s production has waned the past couple of seasons. It would be a splash for Seattle to select Subban but perhaps may not be the best on-ice move. Murray is three years younger, cheaper, and just as productive.
Zach Hyman, LW, Toronto Maple Leafs
The Maple Leafs don’t have cap space. That’s the result of having three players – Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner – each making over $10 million a year, and that means they are going to lose some free agents.
Hyman has twice topped the 20-goal mark, is 28 years old, and too pricey for the Maple Leafs to reasonably re-sign.
He would be a solid addition for the Kraken to swing for via the UFA window at the Expansion Draft. Hyman has the skill to score and his underlying numbers are great. He drives play.
Hyman’s Corsi-for this season is 52 percent, his expected goal percentage is an impressive 67 percent, and while he’s on the ice the Maple Leafs enjoy a 63-percent advantage in terms of high-danger scoring chances. That all adds up to a quality player that Seattle would benefit from.
Seattle won’t get him for the bargain of $2.25 million a year as Toronto has enjoyed. Looking at some comparables, he’s in line for a pay raise. It helps that the Kraken have all the cap space in the world at the moment.
Other Maple Leafs options
Looking at the Toronto projected protected list, the most intriguing player available may be defenseman Justin Holl. While he’s having a good season, he is not as productive as Hyman and would be a downgrade.
Now that the trade deadline has come and gone, NHL rosters are relatively stable heading into the playoffs. This is as good a time as any to look at how NHL teams’ rosters are built, or more precisely, how NHL players are acquired on NHL teams’ rosters.
I pulled all the depth chart information on CapFriendly.com of all 31 NHL teams to see how squads are constructed.
Acquisition types
Before we get into the numbers, let us first take a high-level look at the different scenarios in which players can be acquired. There are some nuances and complexities to some of these scenarios, but I am going to keep it at a high level.
NHL Entry Draft – For those unfamiliar, the NHL Entry Draft is the amateur draft that is very similar to all other major sports in North America. NHL Entry Draft eligibility is generally for North American players between the ages of 18 and 20 and for non-North American players between the ages of 18 and 21.
Free Agency – There are three most common ways a player can become a free agent:
NHL player’s contract expires, and he does not sign an extension with his current team, therefore enters free agency and can sign with any team.
A player is not drafted during the years of draft eligibility and therefore becomes a free agent.
A player is drafted but does not sign an entry-level contract with the owner of his rights before those rights expire. The expiration of rights varies by where that player is drafted from (two years from draft year for junior players, four years for non-North American and NCAA players).
Trade – Pretty self-explanatory, but this is where a player is acquired in an exchange with another team.
Waivers – The waiver process is a little more complex. This is where a player has met a certain amount of playing experience, and his team wants to send that player to the minors (or taxi squad this season). In this scenario, another team can claim this player to acquire him. Acquiring players through the waivers process is relatively uncommon.
Expansion – Stating the obvious here but this is where the player was acquired in the NHL Expansion Draft. It’s important to call out that players that were acquired as part of the Expansion Draft via side-deal trades are designated as “acquired via trade” and not as Expansion Draft selections.
Shea Theodore is a good example, as he was traded from Anaheim to Vegas on the condition that Vegas would select Clayton Stoner in the Expansion Draft. In this scenario, Theodore would be acquired via trade while Stoner was acquired via the Expansion Draft.
Building through the draft
The media narrative is that teams are built through the NHL Entry Draft. If you look at the top 10 players in the league by points, nine out of 10 of them are on the teams that drafted them. Only New York Rangers forward, Artemi Panarin, was not drafted by his current team. Without digging much further, this tells me that the best way to acquire the best players in the league is through the NHL Entry Draft. But what about the rest of the team?
Of the 20 active players on each roster, I isolated all the players that were drafted by their current team to determine what percentage of the roster was acquired via the NHL Entry Draft.
The Vegas Golden Knights only have one active player on their roster that they drafted since they joined the league in 2017. It traditionally takes many years for drafted players to crack an NHL roster and with only four NHL Entry Drafts since Vegas joined the league, there has not been enough development time to expect more drafted players on the roster. Vegas also traded two of their players from the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, Nick Suzuki and Erik Brannstrom, for Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone, respectively. Both Suzuki and Brannstrom are regulars in the NHL and likely would have been playing for Vegas had they not been traded.
Trades
The second most common way to acquire players is via trade. Roughly 31% of the players on rosters league-wide were acquired via trade, versus 40% acquired via the Entry Draft.
The percentage of players acquired via trade is almost an inverse relationship of the percentage of players acquired via the NHL Entry Draft with Montreal and Vegas near the top.
Free agency
The last major way that teams acquire players is via free agency. Roughly 26% of currently rostered players were acquired via free agency.
Acquiring players via free agency gives a mixed bag of results. The number of elite players that reach free agency every year is relatively small, and situations where you can build your team around a free agent are very rare. Usually, free agent acquisitions are more complementary pieces to an already strong core of players. The top free agent acquisitions from the 2020 offseason were Taylor Hall (BUF), Alex Pietrangelo (VGK), and Torey Krug (STL). Those three players are higher-end talent, but are not be the best players on their new teams.
Waivers
There are only six active players on NHL rosters that were acquired via waivers. Waiver claims are rare because if a player is put on waivers, then this player is perceived as having a low value to their current team. That team is willing to essentially give this player away for nothing. However, in a salary cap crunch period like what the league is experiencing now, it could be that organizations need to create cap space for other players. There could be a slight increase in waiver claims over the next few years as teams try to juggle their salary cap situations.
Expansion
Finally, back in 2017, Vegas acquired 29 players via the Expansion Draft. They would flip some players via trade and let others go to free agency. Of the 29 players selected, only five players remain with the team: William Carrier, Marc-Andre Fleury, William Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brayden McNabb.
Wrapping it all up
It will be very interesting to see how the Seattle Kraken roster is built in the first few years of the franchise. Certainly, there will be a large portion of the roster that comes directly from the Expansion Draft via their official selections or trades associated with that draft. Additionally, with the current salary cap situation facing the league, some quality free agents could be available for the Seattle Kraken since they should have much more cap space than other teams.
It has been well documented that the Golden Knights hit the jackpot in year one of the franchise and put themselves on a path to being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender every year since joining the league. This allowed them to trade away some of their developing first-round Entry Draft picks, which bolstered their position to make deep postseason runs now but may hurt them in coming years.
We should not expect Seattle to have the same immediate success as Vegas, as we at Sound Of Hockey believe the Kraken will more than likely hold onto their top prospects.
