Speculation: So who does Seattle flip?

[HoseEmDown]

they didn’t bring out Giordano on stage put a jersey on him to move him out

Ok, then they keep him till the deadline and trade him then. He's 37, they aren't having him around long term. Plus they have several LD that are just as good who need a spot.

 

[Riverfront]

they will flip Pitlick & vince Dunn
they will try and trade dunn for a high draft pick or another centre

 

[The Macho King]

What I dont understand is, if teams were telling him to go screw before the draft because he was holding them hostage, why didnt he raise the white flag and say "okay, I guess that strategy failed" and not decide to just build through the BPA in the draft? Passing on some (seeming) slam dunk selections?

I guess the next few weeks are going to reveal all, but unless Francis has the mother of all river cards to play with all that cap room I'll be scratching my head at Seattle passing over some names.

I'm sure he thought they'd come crawling back. I'd love to play poker with him.

 

[WhalerTurnedBruin55]

I don't think they will flip any of the players that were at that photo op at the expansion draft.

That's kinda dickish to have a player (and presumably their families) fly out to your city, put on your jersey, introduce them to your fans, and them flip them in a trade a few days later.

For the sake of it, is there a list of players that did and did not have a photo op?

 

[bernmeister]

For Seattle fans, if there really are no "side deals", hopefully no one. The 14-15 AHL players they picked I can't see being wanted by anyone, so it'd have to involve the few NHLers they did draft and they're already a VERY weak team.

Obv not expected to cup compete on day 1.
The more club takes it on the chin now to get better futures soon, the faster they do a full Vegas.

They're going to weaponize their cap space now

concur

Giordano

some talk of him + Blackwell back to Rangers for Strome +/++.
no thanks
prefer Strome/+ for a pick/+

also our emerging D imo is ready and need mins, not dilution of those mins by adding.

Defense isn’t horrible. They definitely have an abundance and need to trade some D. They need centers.

Welcome to the club.
that's everybody except LAK

\

MacDermid to the Rangers.

no thanks, b'c....

I hope not. He's an enforcer so bad at D that the Kings moved him to a FWD position.

this^
we have internal options to add sufficient toughness we don't need add like this.

Giordano 50% retained to the Rangers for 2022 2nd + Matthew Robertson + 2021 4th
....

hell no.
don't want Gio, want emerging D to get mins, will accept growing pains IF IF IF there are any, accelerate establishing our core, which includes LD Robertson.

 

[frisland]

Soucy and Bastian for Strome + some bits and pieces (Huska,picks,gauthier, AHL, the like)

 

[GKJ]

I think they’ll flip a lot of guys - it just might not be right away. Wait until some teams strike out in free agency and then start shopping Gio, etc.

It seems everyone expected them to try and emulate Vegas, but Vegas didn’t enter the league with 2 upcoming entry drafts with true elite talents (Wright, Bedard, Michkov). I think they tank and try to get that franchise 1C.

They didn’t roll out Giordano just to flip him.

 

[Rockomax]

Gotta believe that the players who were presented to the crowd will all be staying.

 

[Saucechucker99]

The roster is not set. They can still make trades and there’s free agency. Lots of work still to do for Francis and his staff.

I get that and hopefully they prove me (and others) wrong because I would like to see them be competitive. I just think that they could have been in a lot better position at THIS stage going into free agency. I don't think that relying on UFAs to sign is a great strategy to fill significant and obvious holes in your lineup, especially when said UFAs know you have obvious holes you need to fill and have the cap space to sign them at a premium. I would expect UFAs to leverage that. I mean they didn't do good with Oleksiak already in IMO. Also, I am struggling a bit with how people are saying they can now use their cap space to their advantage in trades. Yes, obviously that is an asset that can and should be used in trades, but why couldn't they have done that already? If they couldn't get any trades done with the additional leverage of the expansion draft then I don't see how they are in a better position to make those trades happen now when they don't have that additional chip anymore.

Maybe they are also slow playing it with the quality of drafts coming up and made the decision to build that way instead of taking risks on a number of players to only end up as a fringe playoff team (or worse) if they didn't pan out. I get that strategy as well and would make sense based on what they did. I guess we will see what happens in the coming weeks and months.