Seattle Kraken: Ron Francis should already be looking to take advantage of unique gift
Things are shaping up nicely for the Seattle Kraken and General Manager Ron Francis.
A year away from entering the NHL for their inaugural year, the Seattle Kraken and its front office, led by Ron Francis, will be busy behind the scenes plotting the construction of their team.
They will be in full planning and preparation mode for the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft, while their scouting team will no doubt be doing their homework on prospects ahead of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft.
And Francis and his team should already be looking to fully utilize the Free Agent market for one huge and significant reason.
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It is hardly a secret that the COVID-19 Pandemic has dramatically altered the landscape of all four major sports and beyond, and that impact could well be felt for the next few years.
We’ve already seen in the National Hockey League that teams will have to deal with a flat cap of $81.5 million in 2020-21, and that will no doubt be the case for the 2021-22 season and potentially beyond too.
As a result, some franchises are already scrambling to ensure they have enough money to re-sign certain key players but there will be cap casualties along the way.
And that’s where the Seattle Kraken and Francis enter the picture.
While General Managers will no doubt be more guarded when it comes to the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft in the wake of the Vegas Golden Knights committing daylight robbery in 2017, some won’t have a choice but to leave very good players unprotected.
With a flat cap likely for at least the next two seasons and with a lot of teams already at or very close to the cap ceiling, the Kraken could find themselves in an even better position than the Golden Knights if that is even possible.
High-end veterans that can bring a lot to an expansion team will no doubt be available, while some organizations will have to make some tough decisions on some top young players in order to protect other valuable assets.
I mean, we saw the Anaheim Ducks trade talented offensive defenseman Shea Theodore to the Golden Knights in order to keep Vegas away from other players on their roster, and Theodore is now rapidly developing into a potential Norris Trophy candidate for the Knights.
Plenty of teams could look to negotiate side deals with the Kraken due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic, so Francis could end up picking some real young and elite talent for his organization as a direct result of other franchises trying to protect certain players or attempting to clear cap space.
Free Agency could also be a pool full of gold for Seattle and Francis to dive into, for all of the reasons above.
Currently, players in the ilk of Alex Ovechkin, Taylor Hall, Tuukka Rask, David Krejci, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Dougie Hamilton are set to hit Unrestricted Free Agency in the summer of 2021, while the likes of Brandon Carlo, Patrik Laine, Sam Reinhart and Tyler Bertuzzi will be pending RFA’s.
With teams in a financial bind, it is feasible to predict that some big hitters will be out on the open market for the Kraken to swoop in and pick them up, while we’ve seen in Free Agency this year that are plenty of very good players still available including sniper Mike Hoffman.
With that information in mind, Francis and the rest of the Seattle front office should now be looking to be clever when planning for the 2021 Expansion Draft, knowing that they could build a large part of their roster in Free Agency given the jewels that could be available.
Also, with teams desperate to move contracts and free up some cap space, Francis could follow in the footsteps of the Golden Knights and use draft picks to really take advantage of the current situation and acquire some big hitters that will make his franchise competitive from the outset.
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Overall, and while they haven’t even hired a Head Coach yet, the Seattle Kraken may well have just been presented with a unique opportunity to build a Playoff team from the get-go due to the Pandemic and its impact on the NHL, and it will be up to Ron Francis to execute and give Seattle a winning team from day one.