For Seattle hockey fans, things haven’t gone their way recently. The Seattle Thunderbirds are now down 3-1 in the WHL Championship Series after losing two straight at home this week to the Edmonton Oil Kings, and Kraken goalie Chris Driedger tore his ACL playing in the IIHF World Championship.
On this episode, the Sound Of Hockey Podcast breaks down those WHL games and discusses what options the Kraken have to backfill Driedger’s position.
KENT – The Seattle Thunderbirds were three and a half seconds away from a chance of tying their best-of-seven WHL Championship Series against the Edmonton Oil Kings Wednesday night at the accesso ShoWare Center at two games apiece. The game was tied at 2-2 and one clear of the puck would have sent Game 4 into overtime, but Seattle couldn’t get it out of their zone.
Instead, Edmonton kept the puck in and Oil Kings defenseman Logan Dowhaniuk flung the puck towards the Seattle net. It somehow found its way through bodies to send Edmonton to a stunning 3-2 Game 4 win over Seattle, disappointing the 4,468 in attendance.
The Oil Kings now lead the series three games to one.
The Thunderbirds may have played their best game of the series, scoring twice on the power play and outshooting Edmonton by a 38-25 margin, but couldn’t get another puck past Oil Kings goalie Sebastian Cossa.
“That’s playoff hockey sometimes, you don’t always get what you deserve,” Thunderbirds coach Matt O’Dette said. “There’s obviously things that we could have done better in the game to come out on top. But we worked, we came to play. Disappointing ending, but we did a lot of good things tonight.”
Edmonton was paced by a pair of scores from Josh Williams, 32 saves from Cossa, and is one win away from its third WHL Championship and a trip to the Memorial Cup.
Jared Davidson and Lucas Ciona scored for Seattle while goalie Thomas Milic kicked away 20 Oil Kings shots.
“I thought we played a good hockey game,” O’Dette said. “We needed to respond after last night to play a better game. We did clean up a lot of areas that we needed to clean up. It’s a heartbreaker, there’s no other way to say it. I mean, it’s a heartbreaking ending and we have no time to dwell on it. We have to be able to regroup and get ready for the next game.”
Game 5 will be played back in Edmonton on Saturday.
Wednesday’s game got off to a rocky start. Seattle defenseman Tyrel Bauer was given a five-minute major after a hit on Edmonton’s Brendan Kuny, who was carried off on a stretcher early in the contenst. Bauer’s penalty carried with it an automatic game misconduct.
In what was likely Bauer’s final game at the ShoWare Center – he is a signed prospect of the Winnipeg Jets and eligible to play in the American Hockey League next season – ended after five minutes of play.
“[The ref] said they had no choice because the player was injured,” O’Dette said of the call. “I thought it was incidental contact. Kind of two guys colliding that maybe didn’t see each other. I thought Bauer was heading back to the front of the net to defend. Obviously, you never want to see a player hurt like that. I hope he’s okay.”
After the game, Oil Kings coach Brad Lauer said that Kuny had been released from a local hospital and would recover.
Seattle survived the five minutes, but Reid Schaefer was called for boarding just before the major penalty ended, giving Edmonton two more minutes of a power play, but the Thunderbirds were able to kill that off as well.
Seattle’s penalty kill was quick on pucks and got clears while the Oil Kings could not get set up.
“Seven minutes straight on the kill is never ideal,” Seattle’s Jared Davidson said. “They found a way to get ‘er going and shut them down. It was awesome, awesome to see.”
The Thunderbirds then went on a power play of their own and cashed in when Calgary Flames prospect Ciona scored his eighth of the postseason to make it 1-0 at 16:08 of the first period.
Edmonton squared the game at 3:37 of the second period on a goal by Josh Williams who slid a rebound past Milic.
Williams would score again to make it 2-1 at 5:50 when he circled and fired a wrist shot.
Seattle tied the game at 12:58 on a perfect wrister from Davidson who scored his 13th goal of the postseason. The Thunderbirds ended the night 2-for-5 on the power play. The one power play on which they didn’t convert but needed to the most came with 2:40 left in the game when Justin Sourdif was called for a trip. The Thunderbirds couldn’t find one more goal, setting up the late-game heroics for Edmonton.
“I think we were getting to the net a little bit better,” Davidson said. “We were getting those second and third chances when they were sitting there, and we were taking away Cossa’s eyes a little bit better today.”
Seattle has been down 3-1 in the postseason once before, against Portland in the second round. They were able to find a way and fight back, winning twice on the road. They’re going to need to find that motivation one final time.
“We’ve been here before, so we just got to take it one step at a time, one game.” Lucas Ciona said.
Notes
> Seattle played without overager Henrik Rybinski who was hurt during Game 1 of the series.
> Likewise, the Oil Kings were without star Dylan Guenther who apparently was injured during Tuesday’s Game 3.
> It was the last game at the accesso ShoWare Center for Rybinski, Lucas Svejkovsky, and Ryan Gottfried, who are too old to return to the WHL next season.
KENT – In front of a sold-out accesso ShoWare Center, Edmonton Oil Kings goalie Sebastian Cossa tamed the crowd and made 21 saves in a 4-0 win against the Seattle Thunderbirds to take a 2-1 series lead in the WHL Championship Series.
Former Thunderbird defenseman Simon Kubicek had a goal and an assist in his first game back in Kent since being traded in June of 2021. It was the fourth post-season shutout for Cossa, and the Oil Kings also had goals from Kaiden Guhle and Jakub Demek.
“We played well for 60 minutes,” Oil Kings coach Brad Lauer said. “I thought we did the things we needed to do, made the changes that we needed to make at the start of the game, and I thought our guys really did a good job of executing.”
Thomas Milic made 33 saves, and the Thunderbirds lost a second game in a row and find themselves behind for the first time in the series. Seattle will host Game 4 at the ShoWare Center Wednesday in a near must-win game
“I thought that the first half of the game was good for us and we were doing some good things,” Thunderbirds coach Matt O’Dette said. “It’s pretty tight checking, not a lot of chances either way. I thought the turning point was the goal right after our power play. That was a momentum swing for them, and we sagged a little bit after that and couldn’t mount enough push in the third period.”
The goal in question came at 17:02 in the second period with the game scoreless. Seattle had just missed on a power-play chance when Demek received a pass from Kubicek and streaked behind the Seattle defense to beat Milic with a backhand and made it 1-0.
In a tight-checking game with room and space hard to come by, Edmonton rode the momentum of Demek’s goal along with a stifling forecheck that has given the Thunderbirds fits all series long.
“They’re a good forechecking team,” O’Dette said. “Their D are up in the forecheck. I thought execution wise, we could execute it better and just making clean plays and ticker tape passes. That started to fall off as the game went on.”
Cossa was there for whenever the Thunderbirds were able to work the puck down ice and on the penalty kill. The Thunderbirds ended up 0-for-3 on the power play. It was the fourth shutout of the playoffs and 11th this season for the Detroit Red Wings 2021 first-round NHL Draft Pick.
“Good job by our boys,” Cossa said. “Our defense did a good job of getting pucks quick to our forwards and boxing outside to do the job.”
After the third straight first period where neither club scored, the visitors outshot Seattle 14-8 in the second period and began to tilt the ice.
Demek opened the scoring minutes after Milic made an outstanding save on a two-on-none breakaway attempt. Kubicek scored on a one-timer on the power play at 4:10 of the third period after receiving a cross-ice pass in the left circle.
Kaiden Guhle made it 3-0 at 11:47. He had time and space in the high slot and beat Milic with a wrister. Carter Souch scored on the empty net at 19:19 to complete the 4-0 score.
“We have to flush this game, the turnaround is less than 24 hours,” O’Dette said. “We have no time to feel sorry for ourselves. Regroup, obviously make some adjustments and watch the video. But we’ve been a resilient team all year, and it’s another opportunity to show that again.”
Heading into the July, 2022 NHL Entry Draft, the Seattle Kraken have twelve draft picks, including a high first-round pick (No. 4 overall) and four second-round picks. This stockpile of picks, and the trades that acquired them, prompted me to revisit a longstanding curiosity: What is a draft pick “worth”?
A trade-data-driven approach
Over the years, there have been many studies quantifying the value of NHL Draft picks. Most of these studies have looked at the performance or longevity of the players taken at the various draft positions in order to reverse engineer a composite “expected value” for each pick.
For example, Michael Shucker created a model in 2011 that calculated pick value based on the odds of playing 200 NHL games. Dom Luszczyszyn at The Athletic created a draft pick model in 2020 based on a draft player’s Game Score Value Added (GSVA), a hockey analytic he pioneered. (Read more about GSVA here.)
This is not what I did. My approach says nothing about the projected quality of players selected in a particular draft position–at least not directly.
Instead I tried to get to how teams have–by their actions–actually valued draft picks. To do this, I looked at the pick-for-pick trades made by NHL teams in recent drafts with the goal of understanding how teams have actually stacked up the value of one pick versus another.
Say the Kraken trade the No. 35 pick in 2022 for the Nos. 44 and 76 picks in 2022. Is that a fair deal or not? Setting aside the actual players drafted, the historical trade data should help us understand whether or not the swapped picks balance out.
The trade value chart
Without further ado, here is my trade value chart:
To read this chart, find the value associated with the pick(s) targeted for a trade up or down (or involved in a known trade). If a trade returns more “points” to a team than it is giving up in exchange, then the team has obtained a good deal and vice versa.
Returning to our example, if the Seattle Kraken traded the No. 35 pick (116.07 points) for the No. 44 pick (78.37 points) and No. 76 pick (24.79 points), you could conclude that, while the trade is certainly in the neighborhood of “fair,” the Kraken lost a bit of value in the deal because they gave up 116.07 points of draft value but only received 103.16 points in return. Of course, this does not mean the deal is bad, necessarily, if the Kraken draft the better players. It just means that NHL teams value what they gave up more than what they received.
My first impression of the chart? Moving up in the NHL Draft is expensive. Graphically, the trade value chart looks like this:
How does this trade value chart compare with player-value-based approaches?
After building a model based on trades teams have actually made, it is natural to consider how it compares with the value-driven draft models already out there. Is there any market inefficiency between how teams actually behave and how they should behave?
I have not yet truly dug into this question since I think it would be a rewarding topic for its own separate article, but, preliminarily, I did compare the trade value chart against Luszczyszyn’s GSVA model. I normalized the values on our chart so that the total draft pick value as implied by trade data and the total draft pick value as indicated by drafted player GSVA would match.
While the curves are similar, there are notable divergences. Near the top of the draft, the trade value of a pick has exceeded the projected GSVA of the players actually selected. The gap is most significant at the first overall pick and steadily decreases until the values converge at approximately the 35th pick. In other words, the data suggests that a team is likely to produce surplus player value if it trades down out of the first round–even if it makes just an “average” trade as indicated by the market.
This dynamic flips thereafter. Particularly in the second and third rounds, the trade market apparently undervalues these draft picks, at least as indicated by drafted player GSVA.
Which pick is most undervalued by the market? The 64th overall. In this range–the late second round and into the third round–a team may be able to generate surplus value even by making just a “fair” trade moving up.
Eric Tulsky engaged in a similar project for Broad Street Hockey on the NHL Draft back in 2013, looking at trades from 2006-12. While the trade data and approach I employed were different–and I could not exactly replicate his results–the end draft pick values were actually not so far off, which suggests to me that there has not been a paradigm shift in team trade behavior over the last decade.
Methodology
If you’re interested in digging in more on the methodology behind developing this trade value chart, some limitations of my approach, and the performance of the model, click here to view an appendix to this article.
This is a very listener-centric episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, as John, Andy, and Darren spend a significant portion of the show interacting with Mailbag questions and five-star reviews. Hilarity ensues, as does some thoughtful debate.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Thunderbirds have advanced to the WHL Championship Series, which gets plenty of attention, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs are down to just four teams remaining.
Other topics this week Charlotte being eliminated from the AHL playoffs and John being enthralled by Tempe, AZ City Council meetings.
Segments this week include Weekly One-Timers, Tweets of the Week, and Three Stars.
When the Seattle Thunderbirds drafted goalie Thomas Milic in the second round of the 2018 Western Hockey League Draft they were hoping they had acquired a big-game goalie, the type of player that didn’t wilt or hide from important games. As they prepare to play the Edmonton Oil Kings in the WHL’s Championship Series, they now know that Milic is that big-game goalie they had hoped for.
The 19-year-old showed up and won big games for Seattle during its current playoff run. Down three games to one in the second round against Portland, Milic won three straight, including two wins where he allowed one goal in each game. In the Western Conference Championship Series against Kamloops, he won the last two games in the series, including a 3-2 win in Game 7.
He’s been so good that the WHL named him Goalie of the Month of May.
He’s the first goalie in WHL history to win two Game 7’s on the road and is 5-0 in big elimination games.
“I love playing in those big games,” Milic said Wednesday. “Part of why I love being in the goal is just being able to have so much influence on big games like that. I think I’m a guy who can be relied on no matter what. Whether it’s a busy game with a lot of shots or a low-shot game where we’re dominant, so whatever it is, I’m the guy.”
Milic hasn’t just been the guy in the big games, he’s played well in general.
His first full season in the WHL yielded 27 wins and a .912 save percentage. He’s stepped it up in the playoffs where his save percentage has jumped up to .926, and he’s allowing just over two goals per game.
“Tommy has been awesome, he’s been a rock back there for us,” Thunderbirds team captain Tyrel Bauer said. “He stepped up and made a lot of big plays when we needed it. We’ve had the belief in Tommy all along and there was no question that he was the guy for this job. He’s earned it and the team’s believed in him. There’s no player I’d rather have back there for us right now.”
Milic was not drafted during the 2021 NHL Draft which was his first year of eligibility. He can still be selected in July’s draft but he’s not worried about that just yet, saying all that is for after the season. He was invited to the Seattle Kraken’s first training camp last year as a free agent but could not attend due to an injury.
In the Thunderbirds playoff run, he’s beaten three NHL prospects head-to-head.
Milic says the opposition has been a motivator.
“It’s hard to ignore sometimes, signed NHL guys and guys that have lots of respect around the league and have lots of accolades under their belt,” he said. “But I think all that really does for me is pushes me to play even harder and hopefully come out on top.”
Playing against Edmonton, he’ll face yet another NHL drafted goalie with accolades in the Oil Kings’ Sebastian Cossa, who was a 2021 first-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings. Milic describes his play as fearless and he’ll need to have that mentality again.
Milic is a ‘smaller’ goalie, listed at 6-feet-0, which is the only possible reason that he was passed on during the NHL Draft. His play this year and particularly in the playoffs may help assuage any reservations NHL teams have of selecting him this July.
Thomas Milic versus the Edmonton Oil Kings
Seattle will need more big games out of Milic over the next week if they hope to win the WHL Championship.
The Oil Kings come into the Championship Series with a 12-1 playoff record and are loaded with offensive talent such as Dylan Guenther (Arizona Coyotes) and Jake Neighbours (St. Louis Blues). Milic says he’s had a little bit of pre-scout on Edmonton’s players but doesn’t think the Thunderbirds need to change much.
“Our physical style of play has been really effective against a lot of other high-end talent that we faced,” he says. “I think we’ll just continue with that and just play our game.”
Milic has been good for Seattle on the road this playoffs, and that’s where they’ll open the series on Friday night. The series shifts back home for Tuesday and Wednesday. The accesso ShoWare Center crowd has embraced Milic and often has chanted his name after big saves. While he’s focused on the game, he hears the chants.
“Absolutely I hear it,” he said. “I can’t help but smile and acknowledge all the fans. For me, they’re special.”
At the NHL Trade Deadline, the Sound Of Hockey panel provided instant reactions to Seattle’s trades. And earlier in the playoffs, Darren Brown updated the progress of the departed Kraken. But with the playoff runs of all of the Kraken’s trade partners now at a close (Calle Jarnkrok was the last to go out when his Flames lost in the second round), it’s a good time to pick some winners and losers from Seattle’s first trade deadline.
Winners
We wanted to go beyond the obvious question of “Which team won each trade?” and also consider how the individual players fared after being moved. So we’ll start with the player and team we thought did best and work our way down from there.
Mason Appleton – For whatever reason, Appleton’s tenure was one of the bigger disappointments of Seattle’s inaugural season. Between injuries and poor play, he did not seem to find his stride until the very end of the campaign when he paired up with Yanni Gourde just before the deadline.
Appleton is a restricted free agent and likely has one more year before unrestricted free agency (unless Winnipeg signs him for longer), so he needs to produce now. And he was productive in his previous stint with the Jets. We are confident that Appleton welcomed this deal back to Manitoba both professionally and personally.
Winnipeg Jets – Appleton was an ascending power forward for the Jets before the Kraken plucked him in the Expansion Draft. Even so, Winnipeg was able to reacquire Appleton from the Kraken for a negligible cost–a 2023 fourth-round pick. Coming off a down season, Appleton should be relatively cheap for Winnipeg to re-sign, and the player should have every incentive to produce. Winnipeg did well in this deal.
From the Kraken perspective, it remains a head scratcher deal for us. Appleton’s play was trending up before the deadline. One would imagine he may have had more value in an offseason trade package if he continued to perform. Instead, the team sold low on a pending RFA, so something does not quite compute. Clearly, Seattle had seen enough to know Appleton wasn’t part of the long-term plan.
Seattle Kraken – Setting aside the Appleton deal, the Kraken did well converting bottom-pair defenseman Jeremy Lauzon and a host of pending unrestricted free agents–all of whom may very well have simply signed elsewhere anyway–into valuable draft capital as the team looks to build a prospect pipeline from scratch. The picks acquired at the deadline look like this:
2022 second-round pick from NSH (No. 49)
2022 second-round pick from TOR (No. 57)
2022 second-round pick from FLA, via CGY (No. 60)
2022 fourth-round pick from WSH (No. 116)
2023 second-round pick from TOR
2023 third-round pick from CGY
2023 fourth-round pick from WPG
2024 third-round pick from TOR
2024 seventh-round pick from CGY
The 2022 draft picks alone carry significant value. One could reasonably expect those picks to yield a solid NHL player. Particularly if the future picks bring another contributor, that’s a good outcome at the trade deadline when you’re out of contention.
Mark Giordano – A leader with the Kraken to the end, he reportedly told Ron Francis that he would not block any trade. Even still, the Kraken directed him back to his hometown, and probable preferred destination, in Toronto. Giordano apparently has appreciated his fit with the Leafs so much that he gave up the chance at a larger payday to stick around Toronto for two more seasons at just $800,000 per season. He seems content to chase a Stanley Cup in a situation he likes, so that makes him a trade deadline winner.
Marcus Johansson – It’s good to be wanted, and JoJo was able to leverage a decent bounce back season with the Kraken into a playoff role with a better team. That kind of exposure should help, even if only slightly, as he looks for a new contract as an unrestricted free agent this summer–whether with the Capitals or elsewhere.
Mixed bag
Toronto Maple Leafs – One could argue Toronto should be in the winners category. The Maple Leafs obtained Mark Giordano, a solid top-four capable blueliner, and convinced him to stay on a very team-friendly contract for two more seasons, all without giving up a first-round draft pick. The team-friendly extension is invaluable for Toronto as it looks to navigate through a cap crunch caused by committing $64 million of the $82 million salary cap to just eight players.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to give the team full marks when it conceded two second-round picks and a third-round pick for the privilege of again bowing out in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And Toronto’s draft cupboard is looking fairly barren at this point.
Jeremy Lauzon – The 25-year-old defenseman is still a work in progress. That said, he had the confidence of the coaching staff in Seattle and received regular bottom-four minutes along the blue line. It seemed like an ideal situation for him to hit his ceiling as a player. It’s hard to know whether the staff in Nashville will give him quite the same role.
On the other hand, Nashville handed over a valuable draft pick for the pending restricted free agent. To justify the move, the Predators will likely need to give Lauzon a reasonable contract and real ice time next year. So, for Lauzon, this probably qualifies as either a neutral or a “too-early-to-tell” move.
Calle Jarnkrok – He said the right things; but we got the sense that if there was a chance to move onto a contender at the deadline, Jarnkork would welcome the opportunity after his frustrating–though not unproductive–run in Seattle. Not only did he get that chance, he landed in what was likely his most preferred destination, playing with his cousin Elias Lindholm in Calgary. And he got to play through a couple rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
On the other hand, the production just wasn’t there. He scored just one goal in 29 games as a Flame. (He was stuck on zero goals for the first 28 games, but finally scored on the night Edmonton won the Battle of Alberta.) He also wasn’t able to gain the confidence of head coach Daryl Sutter to contribute in critical situations, like on the penalty kill. Thus, it strikes us as unlikely that Calgary will pay to keep Jarnkrok off the market, meaning he’ll go to unrestricted free agency coming off a down stretch. He may have been better served continuing to produce in Seattle.
Colin Blackwell – Similar to Calle Jarnkrok, Blackwell had a productive run after a challenging start in Seattle, with eight goals and nine assists in 37 games. After the trade to Toronto he settled into a fourth-line role–averaging 10:48 in ice time in 19 regular season games and just 7:12 in ice time in seven postseason games. He produced just five total points for the Leafs. Like Jarnkork he’ll head to unrestricted free agency on a down note and may have been better off continuing to play a bigger role in Seattle.
On the plus side, Blackwell finally got to play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which we’re certain he does not regret. And one could argue that exposure in the Toronto media market is not a bad thing. But, unfortunately, this one feels closer to the “losers” category to us.
Losers
Washington Capitals – Marcus Johansson is a fine player, and he may ultimately re-sign with the Capitals, but he did not make a notable individual contribution–just eight points in 24 total games–nor did he move the needle for the team. The Capitals were eliminated in the first round after giving up two low draft picks and Daniel Sprong.
Sprong may very well be bound for the AHL next season–in Coachella Valley or elsewhere–but he has a few legitimate NHL-caliber skills. And, compared with Johansson, he is younger, healthier, cheaper, has more offensive upside, and out-produced Johansson on a worse team in less ice time. Not a major deal, but also not a great one for Washington.
That said, it should be noted that the Capitals are likely still quite pleased with their preseason Kraken trade of a 2023 second-round pick to reacquire goalie Vitek Vanecek.
Calgary Flames – The Flames gave up three draft picks–a late 2022 second-round pick (No. 60), a 2023 third-round pick, and a 2024 seventh-round pick–for Jarnkrok. In terms of total value, that’s probably the equivalent of just a single mid-second-round pick. Even still, with some Calgary writers calling Jarnkrok a “failed experiment” and the disappointing end to the Battle of Alberta, Calgary grades out as a clear “loser” in this deal.
Nashville Predators – Jeremy Lauzon did not move the needle for a Predators team that was summarily dispatched by the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yet, Nashville conceded a valuable, mid-second-round pick for the player. Lauzon will likely return to Nashville as a restricted free agent this summer, and he may yet justify the deal, but today this looks like a clear value win for the Kraken.
Your turn
What do you think? How did the Kraken do? Which player or team came out the best or worst?
The final four teams are set to begin the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs this week, so we thought it would be fun to look at the remaining rosters for the Conference Finals to evaluate how they were built.
Player acquisition type
NHL Entry Draft, free agency, trades, and waiver wire acquisitions are all the various ways a team can build a roster. To build a contender, you need to use every tool at your disposal. Let’s look at how these teams built their rosters.
The two-time Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning have the highest percentage of players that were acquired via the NHL Entry Draft. It’s fascinating that Colorado’s percentage of drafted players is so small, especially considering that their cornerstone players – Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, and Gabriel Landeskog – were all acquired through the draft. The variance among the teams that have a high draft percentage is a little surprising as well, being that the conventional wisdom is that successful teams are built through the draft.
To add some context around the roster composition, we should look at which players are scoring each team’s goals by acquisition type.
The second chart shows that players who are still playing for the teams that drafted them contribute a higher percentage of goals scored in the playoffs compared to the quantity of drafted players still on the roster (shown in the first chart).
This is easily explained as the higher-skilled players tend to score more, and teams are more willing to hold on to their drafted, high-scoring, skilled players (i.e., pay more money to assure they don’t reach free agency).
Note that goal scoring is a rather simple and narrow way of evaluating contributions to a team’s success, but directionally, we think this is a fair indictor on how to evaluate contributions by acquisition type.
Draft rounds
Regardless of the acquisition type, it is also fun to look at how many players each team has from each draft round.
As one would expect, players that were selected in the first round account for the highest percentage of players on the rosters. The surprising piece here was that 25 percent of the Rangers roster consists of undrafted players (Alexandar Georgiev, Barclay Goodrow, Dryden Hunt, Artemi Panarin, Kevin Rooney, and Frank Vatrano).
Roster ages
The average age of a team is also an appealing data point to evaluate.
Tampa is the oldest team in the Conference Finals, which makes sense as they have continued to trade away young prospects and draft picks at the trade deadline over the last three seasons. These moves have left their prospect cupboard rather light.
Edmonton is the second oldest team remaining, though this is being inflated by Mike Smith (40) and Duncan Keith (39).
Looking at average age of the rosters is interesting but can be a little misleading because it lacks things like ice time. Plus, having a few players on the extremes of the age range can influence a team’s average age.
Height and weight of NHL playoff rosters
Finally, we are going to take a quick peek at the height and weight of the four teams in the conference finals.
The heights are very similar with all teams having an average height within less than an inch of each other, but the weight of the players is quite different between the Western Conference teams (COL and EDM) and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Here is a look at the player detail behind the weight of the players:
In Tampa, Victor Hedman and Patrick Maroon are right around 240 pounds and are undoubtedly influencing the average weight of the team. On the other side of the spectrum, Kailer Yamamoto is listed at 153 pounds and is the lightest player across the four remaining teams.
This was a very simple view at evaluating the Conference Finals rosters, but we hope it gives you a different perspective when watching over the next two weeks. If you found this interesting, you might enjoy looking at this story, breaking down all NHL rosters from last year. If you have questions about the data or some additional angles you would like me to consider, let me know in the comments section.
There’s been a lot happening in the hockey world this past week, and the Sound Of Hockey Podcast is here to bring you up to speed. From the Seattle Thunderbirds continuing their run deep in the WHL playoffs to the three remaining second-round NHL playoff series, John, Andy, and Darren will fill you in on all that has transpired.
NHL topics discussed include, but are not limited to: The Kraken reportedly (but unofficially) signing Samuel Bucek. The Flames and Oilers both giving up hilarious goals. The Panthers getting swept Name Kadri turning from villain to hero.
Segments this week include Hype-o-theticals, Weekly One-Timers, Tweets of the Week, and Three Stars.
It’s no secret the Seattle Kraken intend to be active in free agency this summer. While the team was resilient throughout its inaugural season, it became abundantly clear in the end that there was a significant talent gap between what Seattle was icing and what its opponents were trotting out on a lot of nights. General manager Ron Francis has been frank in stating his intent to close that gap by bringing in talent from the outside, and there is a necessity for the team to fill out both its NHL and AHL rosters for next season. So a LOT of contracts will surely be handed out in the coming months.
But is now the time to hand out massive deals to bring in a top free agent or two? Or should Seattle hold off and build for the longer-term future?
Why the Kraken should swing for the fences in free agency
There are a couple players on expiring contracts—Johnny Gaudreau and Filip Forsberg—who would individually move the needle for the Kraken offensively. Both of these players are bona fide top-line forwards in the NHL who will be fresh off 40-plus-goal seasons. In a different way, right-shot, smooth-skating defenseman John Klingberg could also help and would also come at a big price tag.
With almost $23 million in available salary cap space, Seattle happens to be one of just a handful of teams in the NHL that can theoretically foot the bill for guys in this tier of unrestricted free agents. But after finishing two spots above last place in the NHL this past season, would big-name players in the primes of their respective careers want to come to a franchise that is just getting its tentacles wet? And if they do want to, should Seattle dish out long-term deal(s) that could land in the 10-digit-per-season realm?
The case study that supports signing a star player now would be the New York Rangers. In Feb. 2018, then-general manager Jeff Gorton and then-president Glen Sather wrote a letter to the team’s fanbase pleading for patience, as the franchise planned to sell off some of its core players. Later that month, Rick Nash, J.T. Miller, Ryan McDonagh, and Michael Grabner were jettisoned, followed by Mats Zuccarello the following year.
If we’re trying to draw parallels (which we are), an argument could be made that Seattle has already gone through this “plead for patience” phase that the Rangers experienced in 2018 and 2019. Though Seattle is certainly less established in the league, and it’s debatable how integral the traded players would have been to the team’s long-term plans, six regular Kraken players were dealt at this year’s NHL Trade Deadline for a bevy of draft picks. So, consider that part done.
The next step for the Rangers was a bit surprising at the time. Just a few months after sending Zuccarello to Dallas, New York landed the biggest fish on the 2019 free agency market, signing superstar winger Artemi Panarin to a seven-year, $81.5 million contract. The move raised eye brows because the idea of signing the biggest available UFA seemed to contradict the rebuild that had been signaled so clearly just one year prior.
The Blueshirts immediately returned to the playoffs in 2019-20, missed the postseason in 20-21, and are currently knotted at 2-2 in their second-round series with the Carolina Hurricanes in this season’s playoffs.
So, there’s proof that signing a star player and building around him can actually work.
Of course, the Rangers got some fortuitous bounces along the way, like landing the second- and first-overall picks in back-to-back drafts, hitting on late first-round picks Filip Chytil and K’Andre Miller, and somehow stealing 2021 Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox from Carolina for just a second- and third-round pick. Oh, and having Igor Shesterkin develop into perhaps the game’s best goalie hasn’t hurt.
Looking again at the current situation with the Kraken, they seem to have hit on No. 2 overall pick Matty Beniers and are set to select No. 4 overall in July. So, some parallels are certainly there. Should they follow in the mold of the Rangers and go for that big fish this summer?
Why the Kraken should be patient in free agency
Good things come to those who wait. But will Kraken fans wait?
Whether it has been stated by the franchise or not, there has to be some internal pressure to field a competitive team quickly. The team sold out its season tickets in the blink of an eye for the first year, and there was certainly excitement around the shiny new product in 2021-22. Still, we can’t help wondering how long that excitement holds if the team is around the bottom of the league for the next few seasons.
Having said all that, there is plenty of evidence to support the case for holding off for one or even two more seasons before trying to land big-time UFA’s. Looking at teams like Tampa Bay and Carolina, the cores of those clubs are built around homegrown talent that was drafted and developed in house. Now the Canes are perennial contenders, and the Bolts appear to be marching toward a third consecutive Stanley Cup.
Francis was a big part of the building process for the Hurricanes, and he now is armed with 34 draft picks over the next three seasons. So could the long game be the route Seattle takes?
What will Seattle do?
If the Kraken can persuade a top-tier and a middle-tier free agent to come to Seattle this offseason, we believe they will dish out the money. Both at the NHL Trade Deadline and at the conclusion of the season, Francis made no bones about his intentions to be aggressive in free agency, and we believe this means taking a run at the Forsbergs and Gaudreaus of the world.
Here’s hoping he’s successful in landing the guys he wants and that some of the fortuitous bounces that the Rangers got will also happen for the Kraken.
