price is too high to make any impactful trades.
Price is always too high for Francis.
I'd rather see this team take another year or two to become better naturally. Seems wiser than torpedoing its future trying to shore up for a playoff run in year #2.
Why would they get better naturally? Much more likely they get older and more expensive while drafting mid to late first round.
Wright and Beniers are great pieces but the rest of the team is gonna be mediocre, transition to sucking hard, and end up in a rebuild with a GM who has proven (twice by this point) that he’s not capable of putting a team over the top.
So Vegas, Edmonton and L.A. have made some moves with Vegas and L.A. probably still looking to do something.
We won't do much more, according to Franics and I do agree with him.
The prices are nuts right now and it could benefit us quite a bit in the long run to keep our assets while other teams will have to find other ways in the future.
Though, I'd really like to know if there was any real interest in Soucy and if so what was offered.
I get you don't want to ruin any kind of chemistry, especially with this group of non superstars, but if we could've gotten anything close to a first rounder I would've been really tempted to sell.
prices are always nuts. Good GMs find guys for prices that are worth paying.
Depends on which Kraken team shows up. We have gone hard against the Bruins in the last 2 times we faced them. Shows that we can keep up with the best of them. So in theory, yes.
But we really need to start playing January hockey.
they played absolutely atrocious hockey the second game vs the bruins.
That game should have been a clear signal that changes absolutely need to be made because the the defensive play of this team is inexcusable.
After seeing all of these pricetags... I'm not sure I want Francis to be buying at all. Nothing is coming in anywhere near the right value. That Van/Det trade involving Hronek is completely bonkers.
A first and a second for a top pairing right d with a year left is not bonkers and never has been. Fans are bonkers and completely delusional about the value of a pick vs a player.
Ottawa just got Chychrun for a 1st and a 2nd.
At least unless they make it to the ECF this year, cause the 2nd would turn into a 1st thanks to that.
If Ron would've wanted he could've done that and would've also taken pressure of those negotiations with Dunn.
chychrun does make me nervous because of his injury history, but absolutely.
I think Fleury should be given a chance elsewhere. While I don't expect Nelson to be NHL ready next year, I certainly think Evans will be. Even if it is in a 7D capacity.
Dunn-Larsson
Schultz-Oleksiak
Megna-Borgen
Evans
I would not be surprised if Evans actually beats out Megna for the 3rd pairing job next season.
The thing I am genuinely curious about is how Francis approaches the roster building next season. The obvious start would be re-signing Dunn and Borgen. That rounds off our top-10 F and top-6 D.
Bura-Beniers-Eberle
Schwartz-Wennberg-McCann
Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand
Tanev-?-?
Dunn-Larsson
Schultz-Oleksiak
Megna-Borgen
We could re-sign Donato and Geekie to round this off. Keep spots for Wright and Evans. But the only way we are actually a better team is IF both Wright and Evans step into the team full time by outplaying the competition. And that is far from a guarantee.
The option would obviously be improving that top-4 D somehow and shoving Megna to 7D or adding a more skilled forward again forcing to move Eberle or Schwartz down to the bottom-6. Man, I am just torn on what we should do next season.
Tear it all down.
More expensive, older, worse.
Dude doesn’t seem to want to take any risks at all ever to improve the team so he should just start the rebuild now.
I'll give RF a one-time pass for standing pat, if that happens, this year. It's a unique year of team building when a playoff appearance is a good outcome. From next year onward I want to see either buying/selling every year
He blew his free passes with last seasons debacle. Extremely disappointed in Francis as GM so far.
Seattle will make big deadline splashes when it makes sense too. It’s dumb to throw away draft picks and prospects when you are trying to build it from ground up. Every year of buying and selling of getting rid of players, draft picks and prospects is not how you build a team to contend.
Ron Francis will never make a deadline splash. You
Don’t build a team to contend by being mediocre and standing pat. Right now the Kraken are in absolutely the worst position a team can be in.
In the building phase I'm okay standing pat. I'd argue that the building phase will be over next year it should be a contending year considering the growth this year. I want to see meaningful acquisitions if a team is a contender. Look at my other team the TBL. They were fairly quiet at the deadline for years under Yzerman. JBB came in as GM and was aggressive. Obviously that worked out okay.
On the other side of the coin, almost all teams acquire prospects & picks when they're out of it and I assume GMRF will do the same. Messing around in the middle of the pack is not anything I feel like watching, i.e. the Mariners for all of the 2000s & 2010s.
Edit: And for the record, I would make minor SELLING deals this year. I wish the Kraken had an above average G, another top-4 D, and a bonafide finishing F because the west is so weak again this year. But they don't and I don't want to try to acquire those things at the trade deadline
this team is not built to contend at all.
In the building phase I'm okay standing pat. I'd argue that the building phase will be over next year it should be a contending year considering the growth this year. I want to see meaningful acquisitions if a team is a contender. Look at my other team the TBL. They were fairly quiet at the deadline for years under Yzerman. JBB came in as GM and was aggressive. Obviously that worked out okay.
On the other side of the coin, almost all teams acquire prospects & picks when they're out of it and I assume GMRF will do the same. Messing around in the middle of the pack is not anything I feel like watching, i.e. the aMariners for all of the 2000s & 2010s.
Edit: And for the record, I would make minor SELLING deals this year. I wish the Kraken had an above average G, another top-4 D, and a bonafide finishing F because the west is so weak again this year. But they don't and I don't want to try to acquire those things at the trade deadline
Dude was fired from Carolina because he didn’t make moves.
Francis has no plan. He’s gonna be a mediocre GM here just like Carolina and when he’s finally turfed the rebuild will be awful.
Glad they didn't trade for JvR or Klingberg, I don't think they would have moved the needle at all. Also happy that the rumor of trading Borgen away didn't happen. Status quo isnt bad in this team's case...everyone can just relax and laugh at Philly. (HF Flyers certainly is.)
status quo is awful.
Teams needs to pick a direction and go. Standing pat with a mediocre team is the worst possible move.
Wasn't that a criticism of him in Carolina that sometimes he was too conservative at trade deadlines when they had good teams?
Yes. He could draft well but he’s seemingly incapable of taking even the slightest risk to improve the team.
I
translation: I’m a coward who is headed towards getting fired again in a couple years.
This bothers me because I don't care much about Burke and is a pretty poor way of looking at the TDL. Yes, there is only one SC cup and there are 32 teams. By that reasoning only the team destined to win the cup should make moves.
yeah that’s such dumb shit. Just the dumbest excuse.
Francis is a terrible GM.
Well, this at least should be popular in the room, and I am sure will be seen as a welcome vote of confidence by the players. That may seem like not much for the day, but it's not nothing either.
Why would it be popular in the room?
Hey guys, you’re good but not good enough for me to risk a mid round pick improving things.
We may not do well if we make the playoffs...but the one team that would be absolutely scared to death to play us (assuming we reached the Finals) is Boston. We've probably played them as stout (or better) than any team in the league. We are built to give them a hard time.
So maybe, just maybe, we might get
that chance.
One can dream.
Boston flattened them easily last time they played. Boston would love to play the kraken, it would be over in 4 as they score at will.
I feel like there was a lot of talk of making moves just for the sake of making moves, but it really all came down to the question, " who do you upgrade?".
Then look at upgrade options, look at acquisition costs, and ask yourself, " is the upgrade worth the price?"
I think the answer was a big "no". Especially not for an expansion team with not enough prospects to even have a proper development camp.
I could have seen Francis interested in maybe swapping a roster player(scoring winger) for a different type of player (energy defensive winger), but not be able to find a suitable trade partner. (Those are the types of deals that are always availabe in the offseason, but rarely at the TDL).
Then it’s time to rebuild.
Francis just sucks. Same shit as when he was in Carolina.
Man is a coward.
I think teams can justify it if it's the right player.
Like L.A. gave up their first to get Gavrikov and Korpisalo, a couple players I know well. They had terrible goaltending and a weak side on LD. So those two happened to cover their needs really well. They're well positioned now to win the West.
There's no analogy to that for the Kraken. Who are we upgrading on? Normally teams have obvious lineup holes they want to fix. The Kraken don't have holes. They're just kind of flat, they could use top end help, not depth. That's why all these rumors about this or that depth piece coming (or going) didn't many any sense. They needed a depth D and they got him in Megna. That's it.
The kraken do have obvious holes. Their D sucks.