GDT: Game 14: Seattle Kraken(5-7-1) @ Colorado Avalanche(5-7-0) - 6:00 p.m. PT / 9:00 p.m. ET

[RayMartyniukTotems]

I have not dug too deep but it's top-5 seems pretty legit to me. Hagens, Martone, Misa could all be legit superstars in the league.

And they(scouts) are saying Matthew Schaefer is a top D-man and Russian Ilya Ryabkin top European and there are some Interesting Players from the WHL McQueen,Cootes,Reschny,Schmidt and QMJHL has some good ones in Desnoyers,Guite and Carbonneau while the Sawedes who seem to Develop very good players have Frondell,Eklund,Klingsell and Gastrin and Nothing has been said much of USNTDP D-man Logan Hensler and some Czechs are interesting too...all in all it has the potential to be a decent if not great draft at the Top 3-5 at least

Colorado needed a ref assist to seal this game

For f*** sakes

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

I think there will be some more wins if Dunn comes back.
Still, the team just isn't that good and unless they somehow find a way to score some goals the Kraken will be out of the playoff picture aaround the TDL.



That would mean Francis having to admit he was wrong and potentially selling below value.

Anyways the Kraken now have a six game home stand including games against Chicago, Columbus and Nashville.

Totally expect us to win more with Dunn. Said so myself, but that is what I want to avoid. This team needs to improve significantly. Game #23 is right before Thanksgiving. Game #36 is right before Xmas. We expect Dunn back by Game #19. If things are not trending in the right direction by Game #30, I think Francis needs to seriously start thinking about selling.

I was looking at Puckpedia and had a whole wall of text written up with ideas on how to buy/trade some vets out, but I trashed all that because I am struggling to see how we are better even next season. I know it's not all doom and gloom, and there already have been bright spots this season with Beniers, Daccord, Montour, and Evans. I expect Dunn to continue where he left off when he returns. McCann is our best forward and I don't think its even close. But having 1 good goalie, 3 good D-men will not get much done when our only legit top-6 forwards are McCann and Beniers. If it were up to me, I would seriously looking at trading or buying out as many from the list below.

Oleksiak
Grubauer
Burakovsky
Schwartz

Unfortunately multiple problems with that. We have limited buyout spots plus all of those players except maybe Schwartz (based on this season) likely have negative value. Retaining on every trade is not a legit option either because we need to find replacements and still are likely fairly close to the cap.

 

[Toomany7pins]

Two three game losing streaks already this season, and they start Grubauer over the only guy who’s kept games close?!

Bold strategy, Cotton.

They need to start throwing wrenches at Gru. If he can stop a wrench he can stop a puck.

 

[majormajor]

Totally expect us to win more with Dunn. Said so myself, but that is what I want to avoid. This team needs to improve significantly. Game #23 is right before Thanksgiving. Game #36 is right before Xmas. We expect Dunn back by Game #19. If things are not trending in the right direction by Game #30, I think Francis needs to seriously start thinking about selling.

I was looking at Puckpedia and had a whole wall of text written up with ideas on how to buy/trade some vets out, but I trashed all that because I am struggling to see how we are better even next season. I know it's not all doom and gloom, and there already have been bright spots this season with Beniers, Daccord, Montour, and Evans. I expect Dunn to continue where he left off when he returns. McCann is our best forward and I don't think its even close. But having 1 good goalie, 3 good D-men will not get much done when our only legit top-6 forwards are McCann and Beniers. If it were up to me, I would seriously looking at trading or buying out as many from the list below.

Oleksiak
Grubauer
Burakovsky
Schwartz

Unfortunately multiple problems with that. We have limited buyout spots plus all of those players except maybe Schwartz (based on this season) likely have negative value. Retaining on every trade is not a legit option either because we need to find replacements and still are likely fairly close to the cap.

The really obvious one is Grubauer, whose struggles seem to sap the spirit from the team. You get lucky with a .910 goalie in his place and a lot can change (e.g. what the Wild did with Filip Gustavsson). Gru definitely needs to be bought out or buried.

For the other three, with the way the cap is going up, every UFA we could reliably replace those guys with will be costly. I think you do retained deals if you can, when you feel like they're hurting the team. But I've gone back and forth on all of them whether they're actually that bad. Like ECH was saying that Oleksiak has looked better since his game 1 disaster (I haven't watched enough to verify myself, but his game log and goals results look good). Bura and Schwartz have been up and down for so long that I don't know what to expect. I'm pretty sure they'll be injured and suck for part of the time, but they might also have some really good stretches. I think Oleksiak can get traded this Spring but Bura and Schwartz can't without heavy retention or us paying, and again I'm not sure it's worth it where we are at as a non-contender.

I know that isn't the most encouraging thing to say about how we'll have a 2025-26 turnaround, but I don't see a quick path here. I think we'll probably be in the bottom half of the conference this year and next. With Gourde and Tanev aging out and seemingly Bjorkstrand on the outs I don't think we'll have a forecheck advantage anymore, it already looks gone. Those guys were always the first thing I looked at in our lineup and thought "we can win those minutes". When we were good it was largely because of them.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

The really obvious one is Grubauer, whose struggles seem to sap the spirit from the team. You get lucky with a .910 goalie in his place and a lot can change (e.g. what the Wild did with Filip Gustavsson). Gru definitely needs to be bought out or buried.

For the other three, with the way the cap is going up, every UFA we could reliably replace those guys with will be costly. I think you do retained deals if you can, when you feel like they're hurting the team. But I've gone back and forth on all of them whether they're actually that bad. Like ECH was saying that Oleksiak has looked better since his game 1 disaster (I haven't watched enough to verify myself, but his game log and goals results look good). Bura and Schwartz have been up and down for so long that I don't know what to expect. I'm pretty sure they'll be injured and suck for part of the time, but they might also have some really good stretches. I think Oleksiak can get traded this Spring but Bura and Schwartz can't without heavy retention or us paying, and again I'm not sure it's worth it where we are at as a non-contender.

I know that isn't the most encouraging thing to say about how we'll have a 2025-26 turnaround, but I don't see a quick path here. I think we'll probably be in the bottom half of the conference this year and next. With Gourde and Tanev aging out and seemingly Bjorkstrand on the outs I don't think we'll have a forecheck advantage anymore, it already looks gone. Those guys were always the first thing I looked at in our lineup and thought "we can win those minutes". When we were good it was largely because of them.

Yeah. I try to look at positives and still am but we are failing while icing a team spending to the cap and trying to make the playoffs. I get why we are doing that. It's a market driven business need. This season 4 with Francis at the helm and I would give him an overall A as far as drafting goes. But what I have seen from him so far is that he really does not do well on most UFA deals. That and his lack of aggressiveness to trade. You want to stock up on prospects, you trade aging vets out and get in assets. Alternatively, if you want to compete now, you want to trade some draft picks and prospects to get in "star" players. Eg: Vegas

I feel Francis just wanted to build via the draft and then got pushed by management to win now. But he is not committed to that enough to get in the talent we actually need to win. That plus the contracts he had given to average top-9 players is really handicapping us from being able to do all that much.

 

[majormajor]

Yeah. I try to look at positives and still am but we are failing while icing a team spending to the cap and trying to make the playoffs. I get why we are doing that. It's a market driven business need. This season 4 with Francis at the helm and I would give him an overall A as far as drafting goes. But what I have seen from him so far is that he really does not do well on most UFA deals. That and his lack of aggressiveness to trade. You want to stock up on prospects, you trade aging vets out and get in assets. Alternatively, if you want to compete now, you want to trade some draft picks and prospects to get in "star" players. Eg: Vegas

I feel Francis just wanted to build via the draft and then got pushed by management to win now. But he is not committed to that enough to get in the talent we actually need to win. That plus the contracts he had given to average top-9 players is really handicapping us from being able to do all that much.

Leaving aside the idiocy of the Stephenson contract (ECH quoted Francis saying he thought Stephenson could be an 80 pt player), trying via UFA while stockpiling future assets seems like a sensible enough approach to me. It's what most teams are going to do when they're not a contender and not abjectly terrible. Teams that are below average but not terrible are not going to blow it up, they never do.

I of course was advocating a much more aggressive trading and acquisition approach a couple years ago. It wasn't a popular view here (I believe this is why fuhrious still has me blocked). One of the upsides of that approach is that you get a bigger pool of interested free agents - they see you make some big trades and signing someone good and they want to be part of it. It's not just the guys that you only get because you're offering more than anyone else thought was reasonable (Stephenson, lol).