Ron Francis as Kraken GM ~ The Verdict Is In

[LemonSauceD]

Who should they have taken at 4 instead?

Savoie of course!

 

[Boud]

How does Francis not get criticized more for this?

Team is going backwards since year one and is now firmly entrenched in the grip of mediocrity.

Beniers low key busting considering his draft position.

Drafting Wright.

Hiring Hakstol and Bylsma.

The disaster that is Philip Grubauer.

The ghost of Andre Burakovsky.

You could criticize Francis for different things but Wright has been good this season and looking like he’ll be a fine pick. He has pretty much the same season as Slafkovsky right now and you look at the guys picked around him and most of them are not even in the NHL yet or just getting their feet wet. Wright is still very young and has room to grow.

It’s the same thing for Beniers. Look at the players picked in that draft and which forward is doing better? Mctavish is having a worse season, Johnson is playing well but marginally better than Beniers. It was the right pick to make at the time and still looks great. Beniers is also playing against top competition every night unlike other forwards picked in that draft. That in itself is very valuable.

Those 2 drafts were weak drafts. Still they managed to pick up 2 legit top 6 players. Not their fault this was not a crazy draft. Not every 2nd overall will end up being Jack Eichel. It’s just not how it works and is completely unrealistic to say Beniers has been a dissapointment as a 2nd overall without looking at the strenght of the draft and absolutely no context.

For Burakovsky I mean the guy has been playing half seasons and is always injured. He’s slowed down for sure, but that’s not Francis’ fault there.

Outside of that, he’s done some decent moves here. Adding Montour, snagging Tolvanen, trading for Kakko, grabbing Daccord, trading for Bjorkstrand. Stephenson has been a good add for them.

I don’t think he’s done nearly as bad as you’re portraying. This is an expansion team. Vegas has skewed the vision of people with how an expansion team should do. Could Francis have done a better job? Possibly, but he’s certainly not done bad. He never had a lot to work with and on top of it he was unlucky picking high in very weak drafts….

 

[StrompTroller]

sign big names....put them on IR before the playoffs....trade for other big names....bring everyone back for the playoffs. Vegas laid the plan out clearly.....

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

sign big names....put them on IR before the playoffs....trade for other big names....bring everyone back for the playoffs. Vegas laid the plan out clearly.....

...Vegas stole that plan from Tampa...who stole it from Chicago...that plan has been around the block more than most Harlots...

 

[johnjm22]

He's a patient GM who likes to bide his time while hoarding assets.

In the past four years they've had:

4x 1st round picks
10x 2nd round picks
6x 3rd round picks

20 picks in the first 3 rounds. I'd like to think something good will come of that.

 

[majormajor]

"The verdict is in"

Completely ignorant OP follows. Classic.

 

[Oddbob]

He really should have traded for some past before day 1. What an idiot!

 

[frisco]

There's also something to be said for avoiding being in that .500 team, just below the playoff line. Building slow up to the playoff line is nice, but it costs you in draft capital along the way. It's a recipe to remain a deep team without that top tier talent, indefinitely

The Calgary Flame model of building and maintaining a franchise...

My Best-Carey

 

[Panthaz89]

what are the expectations for expansion teams exactly? They already made the playoffs once and actually beat a contender in that run and gave another contender Dallas a run just two years ago.

 

[Bleedred]

I remember Freidman or someone (I think it was him) saying a while back some things that made it sound like ownership has heavily meddled with Francis. It wasn't specified if it has always been like this or not or just since this past offseason.

But Francis had wanted to hire Todd McLellan, ownership blocked it and they went with Dan Bylsma instead. I'm not sure if they didn't wanna shell out the money for McLellan or not and Dan Bylsma was going to be cheap because nobody else wants him or what the deal was.

They should have also bought out Grubauer after last year. Massive failure by whoever either didn't think to do that or didn't allow it to happen.

 

[Sharksfan66]

Thing that surprises me most reading this thread is Seattle fans seem happy with the Stephenson signing?

I would have had that close to the top of my list of critiques, alongside the Grubauer & Burakovsky deals. My overall point being Francis squandered a clean cap sheet during the cap crunch years where he should have been able to weaponize it. Or at least he could have gone big on signing a true impact FA to get the team going.

So many people saying this wasn't a Vegas situation. Sure. But it also wasn't a 90s/00s era expansion either. Francis was given a clean cap sheet when teams were crushed under the cap. That has to go into our assessments here.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

He's done an awful job, most importantly the coaching changes and the contracts of Stephenson, Grubauer, etc.

 

[JKG33]

Simply put, they've done nothing to prove that they aren't a horribly run organization.

Sure Vegas took a bunch of teams behind the woodshed during their expansion draft, but both teams had very similar day 1 rosters. Vegas hired a great GM, that surrounded himself with a great staff, and have churned through some good coaches. They took big swings (via trade) at damn near every big name that's become available.. Stone, Pacioretty, Pietrangelo, Eichel.

Meanwhile what has Seattle done? Hired a mediocre at best GM, hired two shit coaches, kept mostly the same roster of middling talent they started with, and overpaid a shit goalie on day 1. They've neither taken big swings to get better (Montour was a nice get, but winning teams need to do more) nor sold anything off to bottom out.

They've intentionally placed themselves in NHL purgatory similar to other mid teams like Calgary, Detroit, Minnesota... good enough to maybe make the playoffs and win a round with some good luck (but nobody is taking seriously as a contender) yet also bad enough to finish just ahead of the bottom 3-5 making it difficult to draft franchise altering talent.

 

[Goose]

And he is guilty of being a bust as a GM, as predicted by many here including me. Every year, the Kraken just trudge forth in a steady mediocrity, got no future, have no past.

“Every year…”

lol, this is what, the fourth season? Mediocrity might actually be an okay place to be at this point.

 

[Voight]

Wright and McCann are their best forwards and get 3rd line icetime while absolute boat anchors get top line minutes. Bylsma needs to get fired.

Byslma had two good years in the AHL and Francis somehow forgot just how awful of an NHL coach he was post 2009.

 

[Voight]

How does Francis not get criticized more for this?

Team is going backwards since year one and is now firmly entrenched in the grip of mediocrity.

Beniers low key busting considering his draft position.

Drafting Wright.

Hiring Hakstol and Bylsma.

The disaster that is Philip Grubauer.

The ghost of Andre Burakovsky.

I dont think this is fair to include. For one, the kid is 21 years old. There isn't anyone who was picked right after him doing much better except maybe Mintyukov. He was BPA and as one expansion team with one draft under their belt, they couldn't afford to go off the board IMO. Thats easier to do when you have a deep prospect pool and multiple previous drafts worth of prospects (i.e Anaheim last year with the Sennecke pick)

 

[StrompTroller]

Byslma had two good years in the AHL and Francis somehow forgot just how awful of an NHL coach he was post 2009.

Sabres-Farms remembers