Plus, we have to remember that many people laughed at Seattle's expansion selections. As well, the Kraken were at a disadvantage for the expansion draft compared to Vegas.
For Vegas expansion draft, the other teams were falling all over themselves and made a ton of side deals to protect their rosters. Remember Columbus giving up a 1st rounder for Vegas to pick Carlsson? Or Florida giving up both Riley Smith AND Marchessaoult? Well, NHL GMs learned from their mistakes and were nowhere near as generous when it was Seattle's turn. For the Kraken's expansion draft, teams were leaving high priced, aging vets available, daring Seattle to select them and there were no sweetheart deals like Vegas had.
Despite the disadvantage that we had compared to Vegas, Ron Francis has done a great job acquiring depth on the cheap (such as Bjorkstrand and Tolvanen) and has built a good team in a short time period