Seattle Kraken build their foundation through NHL mock expansion draft

Here’s our first NHL expansion draft as we try to put together the Seattle Kraken from scrap.

It’s official. The NHL’s 32nd team has a team name – the Seattle Kraken. I couldn’t be happier for the city of Seattle, which is such a gorgeous city filled with passionate sports fans. This is long overdue and Seattle’s quickly going to fall head over heels in love with hockey, just like Las Vegas did.

We’re roughly a year away from the expansion draft, but it’s never too early to start looking at how the Kraken might assemble their team. They’ve put together a very smart front office filled with some diverse voices and I’m anxious to see what they decide to do because they have so many options.

I decided to put together an expansion roster for them myself. Now, some ground rules. First of all, I didn’t include any trades in this mock draft. The Kraken are definitely going to use trades to exploit their leverage, especially with a stagnant salary cap. But for the sake of making this exercise less stressful and complicated, I elected not to include any.

Secondly, let me explain the concept for my roster. I wanted a fast and exciting team built to be competitive not just immediately, but in the future as well. But at the same time, I want them to be competitive off the bat. Not necessarily Stanley Cup contender competitive, but at least competitive enough to be in the playoff hunt.

Thirdly, I went with more forwards than Vegas initially did. That’s because I feel like the forwards I got will get me more in trades than defensemen would have. Fourthly, I deliberately targeted younger goalies because there wasn’t a veteran like Marc-Andre Fleury available.

For my coach, I had some interesting options, but I elected to go with Peter Laviolette. I also considered Gerard Gallant, but Seattle’s front office will be analytics-driven, so I wanted a coach who will use those analytics properly. I feel like that’s Laviolette.

For this exercise, I used the expansion draft tool from CapFriendly. I went with the public protection option (most commonly protected players) and made some changes if I thought something felt off. Definitely check it out and go to them for anything salary-cap related. They’re an outstanding resource for both writers and fans. Feel free to post your expansion draft rosters in the comments below!