Kraken are a couple 3 maybe 4 players away...this team has talent,GMFrancis knows what he's doing and they will add more draft choices at the NHL TDL too which is the smart way to do business...as for those people that comment on Francis in Carolina he did work for some tight wad owners
They are out of a playoff spot, again - and haven't been in the playoffs since before COVID. They're prospect pool is only two or three spots better than Seattle - again, how is Utah/Arizona an example for anything positive? Only the Thrashers tanked a city and a team worse than the Coyotes
Never said it did - and neither did Atlanta for the Thrashers - the owners killed both teams and they are shining examples of how not to run a franchise.
That an odd split considering the records. Maybe just trying to get grubauer back to form in a year they are writing off? There’s no way they can think is a complete coincidence.
I think the crux of the issue with what Francis has done with the Kraken revolves around the bolded.
Are Wright and Beniers really an "enviable 1-2 young centers to build around"? Wright is finally finding his footing, but it's still hard to project him on superstar 1C sort of trajectory at this point, and Beniers is in neutral, if not reverse in his development. It usually takes time for guys to really establish themselves as a true #1C...but the lack of that enviable 1-2 punch at Center is really the biggest problem with Seattle's team, and has been since the start. I mean, both guys are effectively being outproduced by Chandler Stephenson...who is an imo, underrated solid player and decent Top-6C with the right offensive-driving wingers. But a true gamebreaker he is not...and neither of Wright or Beniers looks firmly on that track right now either.
Is their prospect pool really that enviable and stocked with potential gamebreaking forwards they lack? There's some promising guys in there for sure. But i don't know that they're so far ahead of many other teams they're chasing and trying to gain ground on, in terms of those young 23U core guys. Most of their top forward prospects project as Wingers as well...including potentially Catton, who is a very talented scorer, but far from a lock to translate as an NHL Center.
Now...this is where i give Francis a little more leeway. Because quite frankly, he's drawn the short stick in a lot of ways, in terms of where the team has picked and what was available in terms of future #1Cs there each year. He swung on guys that made sense...but just haven't totally panned out.
Now, i'm the last one to advocate for a "deliberate tank job"...but you can also argue that his constant spending on UFAs to keep them in mediocrity has hampered their opportunities to chase certain top prospects in the draft. His strategy inherently leans very hard on top picks Beniers and Wright blowing up big, and/or having some other organizational not at the tippy top of the draft type prospects "boom" bigtime. Otherwise it ends up being a very mediocre bubble team at best...collecting a lot more depth of decent talent that probably keeps them right in the mediocre hunt.
Yeah. The way the draft dice have rolled for the Kraken just hasn't been ideal. That's part of where i give Francis a little bit more leniency, because it is really difficult to say that he "drafted wrong" with Beniers/Wright. They represented the best bets available at their picks, to actually fill the glaring hole in that team. But at the end of the day, i think that's still a problem if they don't take very substantial steps forward (and i'm not confident they have that ceiling in them)...as well as having the rest of these top winger prospects really pan out in a huge way (which is...arguably naively optimistic). I think you're holding Beniers + Wright in much higher esteem than i do at this point though.
That is where, if you really believe that's going to be a championship caliber 1-2 punch at Center, then it doesn't really matter that the rest of the top prospects are likely wingers. On the other hand, if you're not sold on that being a championship duo at Center...you still badly need a guy who can top the depth chart as a bonafide #1C...so a collection of wingers does less to build that team into a serious contender.
The other part of it is that, while it's hard to fault Francis on those specific draft choices...i think there are some concerns about the overall blueprint. Especially when you look at his prior track record elsewhere...of building up a lot of mediocrity and "depth". Again this year, all the decent-solid-mediocre veterans he's committed to are likely to have the Kraken picking ~5th-10th again. Especially if other teams get more aggressive in their deadline "sell-off" and sink below them down the stretch to put them more toward 10th. We'll see what Francis does at this deadline, but in previous years, it feels like he's more content to just hang onto all his collected "depth" of veteran mid.
That's where the criticism comes in. The thousand yard overview trajectory is somewhat questionable. If just continuing to collect solid-good players and lots of wingers, and bolster it with a bunch of mediocre-okay veterans at slightly cushy salaries, is really going to build out to more than just a mediocre "bubble team" overall.
They chose Dunn over Tarasenko, which is and was a slam dunk.
Did you really just come in here and say that this team is better than what we have? It's a million times worse. This team is literally just the aging vets team. How do you replace your whole team in 3 years when they all retire or fall off a cliff?
