Big-time guests on Sound of Hockey this week, as not one but two brilliant minds from the Seattle Kraken’s analytics department join the show for a fun and informative chat. Namita Nandakumar and Dani Chu bring tons of deep data-driven knowledge to the team and to the episode. You won’t want to miss this!
Also in this episode, the guys share some thoughts on the retirement of Doc Emrick, and John shares his story of meeting the broadcasting legend. Plus, some discussion of the latest free agent signings and trades in the NHL, and updates on various leagues returning to play.
Big-time guests on Sound of Hockey this week, as not one but two brilliant minds from the Seattle Kraken’s analytics department join the show for a fun and informative chat. Namita Nandakumar and Dani Chu bring tons of deep data-driven knowledge to the team and to the episode. You won’t want to miss this!
Also in this episode, the guys share some thoughts on the retirement of Doc Emrick, and John shares his story of meeting the broadcasting legend. Plus, some discussion of the latest free agent signings and trades in the NHL, and updates on various leagues returning to play.
A week after coaching the Washington Capitals to the 2018 Stanley Cup championship, Barry Trotz was spotted getting off a plane at Sea-Tac Airport. The news spread quickly and Seattle hockey fans took to social media, breathlessly speculating he was in Seattle to interview for the head coach job with the yet to be named NHL Seattle franchise.
The excitement was and is understandable.
He was on the market as his contract with the Capitals had expired and is considered one of the best in the business. It didn’t matter to fans that Seattle had not officially been awarded an NHL franchise, nor that it had no general manger to interview Trotz. He had a Stanley Cup ring and that made him attractive.
As it turned out, Trotz was grabbing a connecting flight to Canada and ended up signing with the New York Islanders shortly after.
It happened again this past season when the Toronto Maple Leafs fired Mike Babcock. Another Stanley Cup winner was available and despite his prickly nature, and questionable tactics with players, there were calls for him to be the first head coach in Seattle.
We are a season away from the Seattle Kraken first season and they have yet to hire a bench boss. Finding that first coach could happen at any time and will be the next big hire for the franchise. General Manager Ron Francis said earlier this summer that the team was going to wait until the 2019-2020 season concluded before exploring a coach hire.
Once the Tampa Bay Lightning raised the Cup in October, Seattle went on the clock.
The goal is to win a championship so why not hire a guy with a ring? Babcock is still available but the fall out from his time in Toronto makes him an unlikely candidate. Will his track record of success sway Francis?
While its enticing to get an experienced Cup winner behind the bench, history tells us that the chances another championship is on the way are slim.
In fact, since 1968 only one coach has won the Stanley Cup with more than one team. Scotty Bowman won the Cup with the Montreal Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Detroit Red Wings and nobody else comes close.
Unfortunately, Bowman has retired from coaching and is not available. As investment bankers will warn, past performance does not predict future earnings so at some point a coach will match Bowman and win the Cup with multiple teams. The odds are long however and perhaps Seattle should cast a wider net for its coach.
It’s expected that Francis will look to an experienced coach who has been behind the bench of an NHL team in the past. Due to the nature of being an expansion team, that makes sense. The team Francis pulls together at the expansion draft will have to learn how to play with each other so having a leader who doesn’t have to also learn how to be an NHL coach is a plus.
But does an experienced coach promise better success than a guy coaching in the league for the first time?
Of the 31 current coaches in the NHL, 20 had been head coaches in the league prior to holding their current position. That includes Lindy Ruff in New Jersey and Peter Laviolette in Washington, both of whom were hired in the offseason .
Only two of those coaches have won the Stanley Cup with their current teams (St. Louis’ Craig Berube and Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan) while 13 have made the playoffs. Both Trotz with the Islanders and Peter DeBoer with Vegas have coached their current team to the conference finals – both of which occurred this past postseason.
DeBoer is one of three of the experienced coaches who have reached the Final with two different franchises, getting there with the Devils in 2012 and San Jose in 2016. Philadelphia had a good season with the experienced Alain Vigneault behind the bench and he made previous Final runs with Vancouver in 2011 and with the New York Rangers in 2014. Laviolette has yet to coach a game for the Capitals but he won the Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 while losing the Final with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010 and Nashville in 2017.
Having an experienced coach can lead to success in terms of making the playoffs and reaching the Final. During the last ten Stanley Cup Finals, only one team was coached on either the winning or losing side by a guy in his first stint as a head coach.
That one coach is Jon Cooper who has lost and won with Tampa Bay. Cooper is one of 11 coaches who are currently working their first NHL bench and of those, eight have reached the postseason. Outside of Cooper, Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour has guided his club the furthest, reaching the Eastern Conference championship in 2019.
It’s difficult to judge the new coaches as they haven’t coached long enough to make conclusions but it is clear that an inexperienced coach doesn’t necessarily mean your team won’t or can’t be successful.
Colorado’s Jared Bednar and Vancouver’s Travis Green are first time coaches who have young teams overflowing with talent and could be in for successful runs in the near future.
Coaching matters in the NHL. The head coach does more than dump a bucket of pucks on the ice at practice. He has to establish the roster, line combinations, goalie rotations, defensive pairings, power-play strategy, break outs, neutral zone systems, faceoff set plays, the penalty kill, forechecks, and find chemistry among his players. Finding the right match is vital.
Francis will bear a lot of the responsibility here.
Not only will it be his decision as to who steps behind the Kraken bench for game one, but he will pick the players on the roster. A good coach can squeeze wins out of talent but if there is none, that coach will have a hard time winning. Did Joel Quenneville suddenly become a good coach when he got to Chicago and won three Cups after limited success in St. Louis and Colorado? Or was the difference that he had Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews?
Experienced or not, Francis will need to give the Kraken first coach something to work with.
Seattle needs a coach who can work with a mix of players who have not played together before. Former Vegas head man, Gerrard Gallant, is the only head coach who has experienced the modern expansion process. He had success and is available after being fired mid-season this past year.
Could he be a Seattle candidate? Does he want to go through expansion again? Gallant feels like a match, but one has to wonder why Seattle hasn’t talked to him already. Nothing has stopped the Kraken from reaching out and there haven’t been any reports of those talks happening.
Francis has time to make a choice, but the clock is ticking. Will he choose a coach who has been through the NHL grind before? Or will he look to a younger, hungrier, greener coach who’s been a successful as an assistant or head coach in a lower level to lead the Kraken?
With the NHL Draft and the opening of free agency, the Sound Of Hockey guys have a lot to cover in a short time this week, so they follow-up last week’s introduction to “Interesting or Carry On?” with an extended version of the fledgling segment this week.
Together, John, Andy, and Darren give a quick run-down of all 31 teams and their recent moves, deciding along the way which clubs deserve a little more attention.
Other segments this week include Weekly One-Timers and Tweets of the Week.
Free agency is upon us and, even though the Seattle Kraken will not be participating, there are still things to keep an eye on this year that could impact the Kraken down the road.
Here are my top 5 things to keep an eye on during free agency.
The NMC
Look for any players signing deals that have a Full No-Move Clause (NMC). NMC’s are generally reserved for the cream of the crop of free agent players. A NMC means that the team must protect the player in next summer’s Expansion Draft. It is highly likely that these players would be protected without the NMC, but the NMC will limit teams’ options. Anything that restricts other teams’ options and flexibility should be considered a good thing for Seattle.
Cap Crunch teams
All teams will be impacted by the flat salary cap related to COVID-19 lost revenues, but the more teams spend to the cap, then the more vulnerable these teams will be during the Expansion Draft. This could benefit Seattle during the Expansion Draft in 2 ways:
Teams could expose some high-value, high-cap-hit players with the hopes that Seattle selects these players to shed some salary cap. Of course, this doesn’t mean Seattle will select this player, so let’s go to #2.
Similar to what happen in the Vegas Expansion Draft, teams could negotiate side deals with Seattle to shed some high salary players in an effort to create more salary cap space to sign pending RFAs or other UFAs in 2021. Anaheim traded Shea Theodore to Vegas for taking Clayton Stoner and Winnipeg traded a 1st round pick and a 3rd round pick for in exchange for Vegas selecting Chris Thorburn Bottom line we want teams to spend to their limit.
Shea Theodore was traded to Vegas from Anaheim as compensation for Vegas selecting Clayton Stoner in the 2017 Expansion Draft. (Photo by Jeff Speer/Icon Sportswire)
Goalies Carousel
This is certainly the trendy topic leading into the free agency period and for good reason. This year will probably see the most goalies change teams that the league has ever seen in any prior offseason. There are some high-profile goalies that will change teams this year. Corey Crawford (CHI), Jacob Markstrom (VAN), and Braden Holtby (WAS) are likely to change homes. For the 30 teams participating in the 2021 Expansion Draft (Vegas is exempt), each team will only be able to protect one goalie, so goalie signings this free agent period should give us a better sense of which goalies get exposed in the upcoming expansion draft next summer.
Short Term Deals
Keep an eye out for short term deals, as in really short. The scenario here is that a big time free agent signs a one-year deal with the hopes of either winning a championship with a well-positioned team or the player might take a one-year deal with the hope that they can sign a more lucrative deal with a team that has a lot of cap space…as in Seattle. This would be the Taylor Hall to Colorado on a 1-year deal.
Crowded Blue Lines
Alex Pietrangelo (STL), Torey Krug (BOS), Tyson Barrie (TOR), Kevin Shattenkirk (TBL), TJ Brodie (CGY), and Sami Vatanen (CAR) are all likely to find new homes in free agency. Wherever they sign, odds are decent that they will be protected, which means that some other defender will be exposed. There are several teams that already have some interesting decisions to make regarding who to protect on the blue line in the upcoming Expansion Draft. Having more teams with crowded blue lines will expose more talent and will be better for Seattle.
Several of these scenarios might not play out and we still expect some more roster movement leading up to the 2021 Expansion Draft, but we are starting to put the cake in the oven. We should have a better idea how it will turn out very shortly during this free agency period.
An NHL Draft in October? It wouldn’t seem possible that is what the pandemic world brought us as the NHL went online for this year’s selection fest.
Tuesday’s first round didn’t offer too many shocking surprises but there were picks of interest.
As expected, the New York Rangers took Alexis Lafreniere from the QMJHL with the first overall pick and he should jump right to the NHL. The real drama was who would go second to the Los Angeles Kings.
The Kings ended that drama by taking Quinton Byfield from the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves at number two while German star Tim Stutzle was snatched up by the Ottawa Senators with the third pick.
Day two of the draft took place Wednesday and we mean all of Wednesday. With the draft taking place online the pace slowed and it became the unbearable length of the Draft. What started at 8:30 AM Pacific ended close to 4:30 PM.
At that kind of pace it is easy to miss things but we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the highlights from the 2020 NHL Draft that you may have missed.
Byfield’s historic day
By coming off the board second overall Byfield became the highest drafted black player in the history of the NHL. Two players, Seth Jones in 2013 and Evander Kane in 2009 were selected fourth overall in their respective drafts.
“It definitely means a lot to me,” Byfield said of the honor. “It’s something special and being in the record books for anything is special…my Dad and Mom didn’t play hockey or have too much knowledge about that. It’s just growing the game together. It just shows that there’s a lot of opportunity for everybody in the world and you can play every sport and be successful in it.”
The Germans are coming
Earlier this month Leon Draisaitl became the first German player to win the Hart Trophy as the NHL MVP. He was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers, out of the WHL, in 2014. It was the highest a German player had been drafted and now he has company as Stutzle went to the Senators at number three Tuesday night.
There is a German surge of players as Stutzle wasn’t the only German taken in the first round. At pick 17, the Chicago Blackhawks took Lukas Reichel out of Berlin. It’s the first time ever two Germans were selected in the first round.
Early in the second, at pick 34, Buffalo drafted John-Jason Peterka from Munich giving the Germans three players selected early in the draft. You can bet some scouting trips overseas are being booked to take a closer look at the German leagues.
The international game
Canadian players led the way over the two-day draft, with 70 players selected. That was followed by 52 American players and 32 Swedes.
In all, players from 13 different countries and 27 different leagues were drafted.
Ottawa 67’s (OHL) star Marco Rossi was taken ninth overall by the Minnesota Wild and he became the fifth Austrian born player picked in the first round and only Thomas Vanek – picked fifth by Buffalo in 2003 – was taken out of Austria higher.
Big day for Senators
They’ve been the butt of jokes for the past few years thanks to some head scratching PR fumbles as well as a lot of losses but the Ottawa Senators had two good days.
Loaded with 13 picks coming into the Draft, the Senators used three in the first round, starting with Stutzle at three. They also held the fifth pick and used it to take US defenseman Jake Sanderson from the USNTD program. Ottawa finished their first-round haul by looking at the WHL to pick Ridley Greig from the Brandon Wheat Kings at 28.
The Draft ended with 10 picks going to Ottawa plus they picked up a starting goalie after swinging a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins for Matt Murray. The Senators sent Jon Gruden and a second round pick to the Penguins in the deal.
Suddenly, the Senators aren’t so funny.
Another strong draft for the WHL
For the second straight Draft, the WHL saw 28 players taken by NHL clubs. Last year that was tops among all development leagues and while the league had another strong showing, it came up three short as the OHL led the way with 31 players picked.
Portland’s Seth Jarvis was selected by the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2020 NHL Draft’s first round. (Brian Liesse)
Locally, the US Divisions teams did well, highlighted by Portland Winterhawks star Seth Jarvis being the first WHL player chose. Jarvis went in the first round with pick 13 to the Carolina Hurricanes. He wasn’t the only Winterhawk who had his name called as Cross Hanas was selected by the Detroit Redwings at 55 and Tampa Bay took Jaydon Dureau with pick 147.
Gage Goncalves of the Everett Silvertips was a big riser, going to the Lightning with the last pick of the second round. The center exploded for 33 goals this past season after scoring once the year before and flew up the draft rankings. He was joined Wednesday by Everett teammates Kasper Puutio (153 to Florida) and Ronan Seeley (208 to Carolina).
Spokane’s Jack Finley was picked in the second round by the Lightning – Tampa Bay obviously scouted the US division – and Post Falls, Idaho product Bear Hughes was picked 148th by the Washington Capitals.
Defenseman Tyrel Bauer of the Seattle Thunderbirds was taken by the Winnipeg Jets with pick 164 and teammate Matthew Rempe was taken with the next pick by the New York Rangers.
