How do you rank Seattle’s choices?

[Stewie Griffin]

The bottom of the pacific is shark infested waters. Take your mythical creatures elsewhere.

 

[wetcoast]

I think they know who's in the next two drafts to be honest.

That being said we don't know what side deals took place and what assists might get flipped but sure they are playing the long game here.

Still they have a pretty decent back end and play in a weak division so I don't think that are a lock for #1 overall in 22.

 

[ricky0034]

I think when it's all said and done they end up somewhere in the middle third of the league next year

long term they seem poised to settle into an unappealing limbo of not being good and also not being bad enough to grab the talent to become good, and they don't really have much in the way of options for getting out of that limbo right now

they better hope they hit that 2nd overall pick this year out of the park

 

[Voight]

Tanev over Zucker was a surprise to me.

Honestly, at least half the picks seemed "bad" - i.e. they went for a lot of random players instead of BPA.

 

[NinjaTurtle]

Tanev over Zucker was a surprise to me.

Honestly, at least half the picks seemed "bad" - i.e. they went for a lot of random players instead of BPA.

Tanev over Zucker would have made sense if they were looking for a few character guys to lead the new franchise and all the young guys, but it seems like all they got were character guys.

They should have taken a couple high skill players with big contracts, to make the appearance of attempting to have any offence. I think they have a couple second line forwards but that’s it. Expecting these players to realize untapped offensive potential at their ages is highly unlikely.

 

[McFlash97]

Some guys avail in the next 2 drafts starting next season . Wright, Savoie, Bedard


They get any one of these guys added to the core. They take off.

 

[BKarchitect]

As of right now, I suspect they will be a lot more competative than casual fans seem to think but will fall well short of the incredible debut season that Vegas had.

They are going to be a hard and annoying team to play against. You can mark that down for sure. They have physicality throughout their line-up and even most of their smaller or more finesse guys are at least still industrious and energetic players. I suspect a high-tempo, physical style with an intense and unrelenting forecheck to make up for a general lack of high skill. They also have plenty of guys known as leaders either on or off the ice who are going to set a high work ethic - as was the case with Vegas and as would be important when starting a team from scratch. The defensive accumen on their blueline is high and their goalie situation looks fine and definitely has some upside.

On the down side, of course - there is a lack of high-end skill and other clubs were not so willing this time to step in and supply some ammo as they were so generous to do with Vegas. I'm seriously concerned about the lack of natural centers and playmaking from that position...a lot of the guys I keep seeing at center in hypothetical Kraken line-ups are either definitely not centers or rarely play center even if they are listed as such on various websites. There is also a severe lack of trustable puck movement and offensive accumen from the blueline outside of perhaps Dunn. Gio is not that guy anymore.

They may be more fun to watch for the home fans (the novelty of an inagural season and they are gonna play hard) than neutrals or opposing fans who may find their teams bogged down into grimey, messy games with Seattle. They will need to literally grind out wins - but they are definitely going to be capable of ambushing teams who don't match their intensity and work ethic on a night-to-night basis. And as always is the case, we may see a few players really blossom with this opportunity and make the roster - in retrospect - better than it looks at the moment.

It's easy to look at the roster now and see a bottom club but there's also a catch - most crap teams are in disarray with firings, rebuild fatigue and a general bad atmosphere that also seeps into the play of the team. As an expansion team, the Kraken are going to get a natural boost from the excitement of being fresh. Guys are looking to grab this opportunity. There's going to be a "the world is underrating us" mentality. A "let's all come together and do this" mentality. The roster may not be good but the entire situation will not be the same as another similar club who has a shitty roster but has been mired in a 5 year rebuild and that is stale.

 

[Xspyrit]

What I think they could've done better: not sure what they were aiming for with certain picks (e.g. idk who's Bastian/ Twarynski/ Borgen/ True/ Geekie/ Quenneville/ Bayreuther/ Daccord, if any fans from their former teams have insights please educate this Canucks fan here about their upside). I personally would've taken Kahkonen as the 3rd goalie instead of Soucy, but that's just my pick. Lastly I wonder if there was a way for them to value from Tampa and keep them in cap hell instead of just taking Gourde.

For Minny/Ottawa, thought process might have been :

Soucy + Daccord > Kahkonen + Tierney

It's all about who else was available from each team, injury concerns (Tarasenko, Price, Weber, etc) and desire to "weaponize" cap space.

I find their defense is pretty good and they have a lot of good 2-way forwards. They're lacking scoring punch obviously but the off-season is far from over.

 

[Voight]

Tanev over Zucker would have made sense if they were looking for a few character guys to lead the new franchise and all the young guys, but it seems like all they got were character guys.

They should have taken a couple high skill players with big contracts, to make the appearance of attempting to have any offence. I think they have a couple second line forwards but that’s it. Expecting these players to realize untapped offensive potential at their ages is highly unlikely.

They must really be banking on some of these guys to breakout the way Karlsson & Marchessault did

For Minny/Ottawa, thought process might have been :

Soucy + Daccord > Kahkonen + Tierney

It's all about who else was available from each team, injury concerns (Tarasenko, Price, Weber, etc) and desire to "weaponize" cap space.

I find their defense is pretty good and they have a lot of good 2-way forwards. They're lacking scoring punch obviously but the off-season is far from over.

I get hes had shoulder issues but it came out before the draft that he is 100% now. I mean, how do you turn down a free 40 goal scorer who also had a good playoff run last time he was healthy.

 

[Hierso]

I'd have to vote for 'other'.

With the ~26m in free cap space they have some options

A) Try to get decent/good players from teams with cap issues, if they do this and get the right guys they might turn out to be a bubble team this year.
B) Take on grabage for picks + prospects, the tanking option
C) UFA hunting & RFA offer sheets. They technically have the cap space to offer either Makar or Pettersson a deal that will be hard to match.

Out of these three options i seriously doubt that option C will happen, however it's not really a great start for the franchise to start with a tank since you want to build that fanbase and even established teams have a hard time to get people into the arena during the years they tank.

 

[North Cole]

As it stands, poor regular season. They arent done though, so we'll see.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I think they will be terrible but I also thought the same of Vegas sooooooo

 

[Adele Dazeem]

I would've done the same.

 

[JTToilinginToronto]

I guess it depends on perspective.

I think they could have put together a better win now roster. But I suspect they are eyeing a top-5 pick in next year's draft.

 

[Artanis]

If it's not a tank attempt, Francis should be fired.

 

[42]

Cup finalist!

 

[OilersGo]

less n optimal in my eyes who knows where theyre be at by the end all say all

 

[Captain97]

I'm waiting to see what they do over the next week. That being said, 2 pretty good drafts to tank in.

 

[makbeer]

Big physical team that will set a tone and culture for hard work and be ready to add high-end skill through the draft.

 

[Kojo]

Can't blame them for tanking. They're picking second overall this year and maybe first overall next year, if they get lucky.

 

[biturbo19]

They have very little trade capital to play with... I can't see this team doing anything for a decade outside of a random 1st round appearance.

This is the thing that really stands out to me about their selections as a whole.

I can understand going "cheap" and maybe even working on the philosophy that "cap space is more valuable than better players". But that doesn't mean you can't target some players who you're going to be able to flip for more value over the next few years. Move a few guys each year as their contracts tick over and become viable expiring "rentals". They have a couple of those guys, but not nearly as many as it seemed like they could have had, if that was the blueprint. And a fine blueprint it could be.

But...As it stands...it kinda just looks like a normal "rebuilding" roster full of filler and fringe. But without the pre-existing farm system. And more or less trying to "out-rebuild" the various other rebuilding teams, despite not particularly having any more premium picks than any of them. Not sure how they really get ahead without leveraging their position into a slate of extra picks to pump volume into the system and/or spend as capital to acquire good core players elsewhere. Basically just have to expect that you're going to "out draft" other rebuilding teams on "quality", with an unusually high hit rate, superstar conversion rate, and more of those "hidden gems" than average.

 

[beowulf]

It really depends on how well they make out signing a few UFAs which I think was part of the goal. With some big names who are still great players available, they left themselves enough cap room to sign a few high end talents.

 

[3074326]

They need more guys to play center and score goals. The team as its built will be pretty good on D and pretty bad at offense.

I give it "other" because I'd grade it as incomplete. I disagree wholeheartedly with some of the draft choices, but I do think the team will be tough to play against. They need offensive talent.

I don't think they're a playoff team. They look to have a good chance at a high pick next year.

In regards to folks saying people were saying the same about Vegas - sure, people did say the same thing about Vegas. But looking back at that draft, there was offensive talent drafted in addition to good defensive players. Marchessault, Neal and Perron could all put up offense.

 

[treple13]

From what I see the roster is too deep on D to tank, but not good enough to be a contender. Also they get a lot of games against other tanking teams in the Pacific.

 

[Painful Quandary]

The Pacific has a number of bad/rebuilding teams. They will have a better season than a lot of people will think they will have by looking at the roster.