Ron Francis was out of his depth in the Seattle Kraken's inaugural offseason

By Aaron Propson

Photo via Bob Frid- USA Today Sports

The Seattle Kraken are dominating NHL discourse this week and for all the wrong reasons. The franchise's inaugural season has been tumultuous at best. With just 10 wins through 33 games this season, the Kraken is comfortably basement dwellers in the Pacific Division. The question for analysts and reporters alike is, What went wrong for the Kraken? EP Rinkside writer and one of the most prominent analytics voices in the sport, JFresh, investigated it. As did ESPN's Greg Wyshynski, who sat down with Kraken GM Ron Francis to get his thoughts on his team's underachieving start. The answer to the question is that: Pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. 

Let's start even before the NHL expansion draft in July, where the Kraken could steal at least one semi-valuable player from 30 other NHL teams. It should be said that comparisons to the Vegas Golden Knights and their success are immensely harsh on Seattle. While the expansion rules were the same for both Vegas and Seattle, GM's learned from the mistakes of 2017 when they gifted Vegas a perennial cup contending team through side deals and questionable protection lists. So naturally, the Kraken made a whopping grand total of zero side deals. The Athletic's Pierre Lebrun reported on multiple occasions that Francis tested the market but ultimately refused to lower his "exorbitant" asking price. Seattle was never going to fleece teams in the same manner that Vegas did, but that doesn't mean there weren't some valuable deals to be had out there. 

Ok, so they made no side deals. They can still build a solid team without doing so. After all, they have 30 readymade NHL players to select and $81.5 million in cap space to work with. 

The expansion draft is arguably Seattle's most egregious blunder. In some cases, they made the obvious and correct pick. Yanni Gourde, Jamie Oleksiak, Jared McCann, and Jordan Eberle were obvious choices and remain good selections today. In other cases, Seattle downright punted on expansion picks, selecting players they had no intention of ever using. For example, they drafted Kurtis MacDermid from the Kings. MacDermid is a replacement-level player, but his father did play with Ron Francis on the Hartford Whalers in the 80s. Nepotism? Perhaps not, but it sure seems like that was the case. The Kraken selected Carsen Tawrynski from the Philadelphia Flyers, passing on Jakub Voracek, James Van Riemsdyk, and Shayne Gostisbehere. Twarynski, 23, has 1 point in 22 career NHL games and has yet to prove himself of any value to an NHL club. They also selected Gavin Beyreuther from Columbus. The 27-year-old's Kraken stint was short-lived, as he re-signed with Columbus as a UFA a week later. John Quenneville was selected from Chicago. The son of former Panthers and Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, he was not signed by the Kraken and is now playing in Europe. Quenneville, Bayreuther, and Twarynski are prime examples of how to ruin an expansion team. Not every player selected in the expansion draft will play for the team, but to get absolutely zero value from multiple selections is beyond mindboggling. Look at what Vegas did with their expansion picks. They loaded up on depth defenseman and pawned them off later for draft picks and other additional value. If you're not going to make any side deals, at least be ready to take the player with the most future value. The Kraken did neither, and they're seeing the consequences of that play out this season. 

#Canucks holding a late lead against a team with the Kraken's firepower. Could get dicey.

Oh wait, you're telling me the Kraken didn't select van Riemsdyk or Tarasenko or Shattenkirk or Henrique or Domi or Bean in the expansion draft?

— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) January 2, 2022

Ok, so the Kraken didn't make any side deals and made some head-scratching expansion picks. At least they have a ton of cap room? Not really, as they spent most of it on bloated UFA contracts. The two marquee summer signings for the Kraken were Jaeden Schwartz and Philipp Grubauer. Schwartz is a respectable top-six forward, but he's 29 and is bound to regress before his contract expires in 2026. Grubauer was a Vezina finalist last season, but his six-year, $35.4 million contract was a gigantic gamble, one that is looking like a terrible investment so far. Grubauer is easily the worst starting goaltender in the league and the primary reason for Seattle's dreadful start. So Seattle made conservative expansion draft selections, only to turn around and commit $11+ million to Schwartz and Grubauer for the next five years. 

Jaden Schwartz is an underrated defensive talent, but his production is in decline and he's 29. Looks like a bad bet (especially when considering two of his comps are Okposo and Eriksson) pic.twitter.com/RD8jbSUKaf

— dom at the athletic (@domluszczyszyn) July 28, 2021

Before the season started, even after the expansion draft blunders and underwhelming free agency, most expected Seattle to still be a quality team. Many predictive models had them as a playoff team, even if they lacked the high-end goalscoring needed to be an elite team. Nobody predicted Grubauer and Chris Dreidger being the worst goaltending tandem of the last decade, yet here we are. So yes, maybe this assessment is harsh on Ron Francis, but that doesn't excuse the numerous mistakes in team-building and asset management. The Kraken is a team that isn't built to win right now, and they don't have a war chest of draft picks and prospects to lean back on. The expansion draft rules were tailormade for the Kraken to succeed, and they squandered it. GMs are smarter and wearier of past mistakes than they were during the Golden Knights' inaugural offseason, but that excuse only goes so far. The reality is that Francis was unwilling to lower his asking price on side deals, left value on the table in the expansion draft, and made poor investments in free agency. Seattle is now paying the price for that.