[News] Seattle made no side deals today, but apparently deals to be announced tomorrow

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by transplant99

No side deals...to take players that may, or may not, impress enough to get extended and/or signed as FA's moving forward.

BUT

They have a 30M in cap space.

They can do whatever they want with that kind of flexibility.

Todays roster is a loooong way from being finalized.

I think its a brilliant strategy moving into draft weekend.

Exactly. What I see is they filled goaltending, Defence and depth forwards in the draft.

They will be filling in their top forwards and maybe another D in free agency by overpaying with their cap space.

I’d say they are nowhere near done yet.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by handgroen

Flames have 20M in cap space!
Seattle’s brilliant strategy is only really only 3 over 2 our lesser brilliant strategy!

Flames have 20M in cap space and 10 roster spots to fill. Kraken have 29M and 4 spots to fill (according to Capfriendly). This makes a wee bit of a difference.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Not just premature but completely shortsighted. All these people calling for the Kraken to select the best 30 NHL players and then flipping a whole bunch for picks are out to lunch.

They’d have zero leverage if they tried that. Teams could just wait until closer to the start of the season, Francis would have no choice but to unload them or put them on waivers. What kind of idiot GM would trade for a player now that they can have for free in a month or two?

Any GM that isn't at the top of the waiver priority list?


Daccord over Tierney (maybe Daccord will be good)

MacDermid over B Lemieux or AA (both have been traded for value in the last year) or D-prospect Kyle Clague

John Quenneville over Zadorov (traded for value last year)

Twarynski over Rubstov or Hagg or Braun

True might be fine, but Donato and Gambrell seem more intriguing

CBJ list was weak, but a team like CGY should've been looking for a guy like Stenlund (instead of Pitlick).


Tierney 1x3.5M is the only one that would take significant cap space. Zadorov is a pending RFA.

[Poe969]

They could have picked Domi and probably traded him, Bean is already proven to be a good young Dman and I really think they should have gone after Price for so many reasons. They could have even traded him with retained salary for a big return.

This is all just puzzling to me, I'll admit I wasn't crazy about what Vegas did but they made a lot of side deals. This just looks like it was poorly thought out IMO

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Poe969

This is all just puzzling to me, I'll admit I wasn't crazy about what Vegas did but they made a lot of side deals. This just looks like it was poorly thought out IMO

This isn't directed 100% at you.

If the side deals weren't to Francis' liking, what's he supposed to do?

It's pretty hard to drive a hard bargain if there's nothing on offer.

All of the armchair GMs are in the headspace of taking the best player off of each team or the one that they think has the most value in a trade. From the players that were selected by Seattle, Francis was/is trying to build a team.

They don't have a first line, but have the cap space to sign/trade for one. Depth forwards look solid, D are solid and should be good between the pipes.

[Philly06Cup]

GMs had 3 months to prepare for the a whole new set of expansion draft rules for Vegas. GMs had over two years and prior experience when dealing with Seattle's expansion.

The difference is very telling.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

GMs had 3 months to prepare for the a whole new set of expansion draft rules for Vegas. GMs had over two years and prior experience when dealing with Seattle's expansion.

The difference is very telling.

I think it was on Francis. He was asking too much to layoff players or take on bad salaries. You have to test the market and find the sweet spot. Francis never found the sweet spot, then screwed himself by taking some real garbage players.

[Stanley]

Meh, whatever...they're in our division so...##### Seattle

[TheIronMaiden]

Seattle is no good.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by kermitology

Seriously? This is an awful roster then. Yikes..

Would you really want to start a team with Tarasenko and Price etc type deals tying your hands? Deals that they make moving forward will at least compensate them with draft picks or prospects for eating salaries on players like this.

Again we are seeing an expansion team with depth far superior to many existing teams. 1 or 2 solid free agent signings and a couple trades with salary retention and this team will be a threat. If you throw in say Landeskog, Schwartz and maybe a trade for Neidereitter (or similar player) this team will be strong.

[Robbob]

Yeah I don't like their roster, but they do have the draft and UFA before they settle on what will be their team. I highly doubt they surprise like Vegas did.

[Roof-Daddy]

I hope Seattle messed this up, but time will tell.

Some of the picks were very, very puzzling knowing that there were no side deals.

They have a deep D and young goalies with upside. We'll see if they add a vet goalie or not via trade or free agency.

And the forwards, I honestly didn't think too much of the Vegas group before they played, but when you take fringe top 6 guys and feed them top 6 minutes with PP time sometimes they blow up. Just look at Karlsson in Vegas for example. Plus they can still add in that regard too.

But yeah, hopefully they suck.

[delayedreflex]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

This isn't directed 100% at you.

If the side deals weren't to Francis' liking, what's he supposed to do?

It's pretty hard to drive a hard bargain if there's nothing on offer.

All of the armchair GMs are in the headspace of taking the best player off of each team or the one that they think has the most value in a trade. From the players that were selected by Seattle, Francis was/is trying to build a team.

They don't have a first line, but have the cap space to sign/trade for one. Depth forwards look solid, D are solid and should be good between the pipes.

So maybe there weren't many side deals to be had - but in that case, shouldn't you just take the highest value player available from each team? Maybe that's what Francis believes he did, but if so his method for valuing players is pretty out there.

[Hemi-Cuda]

I'm just going to go ahead and predict that the Kraken make the playoffs their first season. Weakest division and fans across the league calling the roster garbage are prime ingredients for a group of guys to gel and start winning. I remember reading a lot of the same complaints almost verbatim after the Vegas draft

Big difference between Seattle and Vegas though is the deals McPhee made to stock up on picks, which Francis seemed incapable of doing. I think Seattle will surprise a lot their first year but won't have the continued success of Vegas

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Geekie over Bean for no reason at all?

That man has a name that yearns to sell jerseys sir!

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I'm just going to go ahead and predict that the Kraken make the playoffs their first season. Weakest division and fans across the league calling the roster garbage are prime ingredients for a group of guys to gel and start winning. I remember reading a lot of the same complaints almost verbatim after the Vegas draft

Big difference between Seattle and Vegas though is the deals McPhee made to stock up on picks, which Francis seemed incapable of doing. I think Seattle will surprise a lot their first year but won't have the continued success of Vegas

I think GMs learned a lot from the Las Vegas experience and were not going to give up additional assets.

Francis also might have been aiming too high with the side deals if the rumored 1st + 3rd to not pick Gio is accurate. I think the Flames would have paid a 3rd, but not anything more than that.

[Icon]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Seattle is no good.

S.I.N.G!

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Flames have 20M in cap space and 10 roster spots to fill. Kraken have 29M and 4 spots to fill (according to Capfriendly). This makes a wee bit of a difference.

True. But to b fair...

The Flames only need 1 top 6 forward and one top 4 defenseman. The rest are fillers.

Seattle has all the fillers but need 4 or 5 top 6 forwards. They have NO first line players.

[sureLoss]

Here is what Vegas got in protection deals:
6th
Reilly Smith (gave up a 4th)
5th
Gusev, 2nd, 4th
Grabovski, Bischoff, 1st, 2nd
Theodore
Tuch (gave up a 3rd)
1st, 2nd, edit: forgot Clarkson
upgraded one of the above 1st round picks from 24 OA to 13 OA and added a 3rd
2nd

Then this is what Vegas got flipping players after the expansion draft:
2nd
5th
2nd
3rd.



So far what Seattle got in both protection deals and flipping players:
4th


While there is still some flips probably going to be made, the asset difference in the 2 expansion drafts is staggering.

Could Seattle be competitive in their first year? Yes but I doubt they have the assets to continually improve like Vegas did over the next few years.

[Canada 02]

teams learned from their mistakes with Vegas
Francis asked for too much
Francis made some bad picks