In the end, I didn't really mind that the Seattle Kraken expansion picks all leaked out on Wednesday morning. It gave me some extra time to analyze the list, so I could still pay some attention to the live event broadcast in the evening, as well as the Zoom interviews with the players that the league was running concurrently.
My initial breakdown of the Kraken roster can be found here:
The broadcast did make a point of playing up the soon-to-be-launched rivalry between Seattle and Vancouver. The picks were announced by division, starting in the East, which allowed Vancouver to be the very last selection. I wonder if Kole Lind ever imagined he'd hear Jerry Bruckheimer calling his name?
And while the Kraken are set to start their inaugural season on the road while the renovation crew puts the finishing touches on Climate Pledge Arena, their home opener will be against the Canucks. That date is Saturday, October 23 — presumably the second weekend of the new season.
The full NHL schedule is set for release on Thursday at 3 p.m. PT, and is expected to include an Olympic break.
As for Kole Lind — well, it'll be interesting to see how he fares in a new environment. After finally making it to the NHL this season, Vancouver's second-round pick from 2017 went pointless in his seven games with the Canucks. He started with 17:12 of ice time against Toronto on April 29, then saw his minutes drop steadily, all the way down to the 10-minute range in his last two games.
Lind has shown good hands and some bite in his game at lower levels, and was able to make the move from wing to centre while he was with the Comets in Utica. He's currently an RFA, one year away from having arbitration rights. And while his departure creates yet another roster hole on the farm, he'll have to clear waivers this year if he's assigned to the AHL.
I don't think we can get too indignant about the fact that Jim Benning wasn't able to offload a bigger contract to the Kraken. That simply wasn't Seattle's gameplan. As I outlined in the Forbes article, they only took two players over 30 — Mark Giordano and Jordan Eberle. And those two, plus Yanni Gourde, were the only ones with cap hits over $5 million.
When the dust settled, the Kraken had assembled a roster that's young and relatively inexpensive. And while they weren't able to stockpile draft picks and prospects like Vegas did, the Golden Knights' early success did help make Seattle an attractive destination for quality free agents. The Kraken built out their back end with three solid UFA signings from their exclusive negotiating window — goalie Chris Driedger and defensemen Adam Larsson and Jamie Oleksiak.
I thought Oleksiak's ticket was rather high at five years at $4.6 million, but would have expected Larsson's asking price to be higher. He got just four years at $4 million. Apparently that's the same deal he was offered in Edmonton, but he gets a fresh start in Seattle — and gets to live and work in a market with no state income tax.
As I write this on Thursday morning, the roster freeze is lifting. It'll be interesting to see how many of Seattle's selections are now flipped to other teams.
CapFriendly now has the Kraken's shiny new page up and running. It shows Seattle with 22 contracts currently on the books, plus seven RFAs and two UFAs. And yes, Kole Lind is listed in the 'non-roster player' section, along with four other forwards and two defensemen.
The Kraken will need to fill out their franchise depth, of course. The draft will help with that. But Ron Francis made it clear on Wednesday that his team intends to still be active in free agency when the market opens next week. If he's going to bring in some more big fish, so to speak, he needs to make room for them.
Still — it's hard not to like that Seattle blue line as it stands now, with Giordano, Oleksiak, Larsson, Vince Dunn, Carson Soucy and Jeremy Lauzon as their top six.
As for the Canucks, Jim Benning is making his media rounds on Thursday, with an appearance on Sportsnet 650 at 11 a.m. and a Zoom call with reporters at 11:30. I imagine he'll share his thoughts on the expansion draft, update us if there's any news on a potential Nate Schmidt deal, and set the stage for the entry draft, with Round 1 ready to go — virtually, again — at 5 p.m. PT on Friday.
I wrote a general draft preview a couple of weeks ago, when the top prospects were made available during the Stanley Cup Final.
It's still hard to get any real sense of how the top of the draft order will shake out. But after local boy Kent Johnson landed at No. 9 on Bob McKenzie's draft rankings earlier in the week, he also lands in the same spot on
Craig Button's Final 2021 Mock Draft.
Johnson may be flying under the radar a bit compared to most of the other players expected to be selected in the Top 10. As a 2002 birthday, he was too old to play at U18s this year, and he didn't go to the World Championship like his University of Michigan teammates Owen Power and Matty Beniers. Michigan also didn't get a chance to play in this year's Frozen Four — forced to withdraw due to Covid protocols.
Johnson's a slick, skilled player who gets high marks on the watchability scale, even if he is on the small side, listed at 6'1" and 165 pounds. His coach, Mel Pearson, said in a recent interview that he showed tremendous improvement over the course of last season, and could ultimately emerge as the most successful player from this draft class.
I'd love to see the Canucks select a big-bodied forward like Mason McTavish, but his draft stock seems to be peaking at just the right time for him. I expect he'll be gone by the ninth pick. The other players from that top group that intrigue me are Simon Edvinsson, Dylan Guenther, William Eklund and — a little farther down the list — Fedor Svechkov.
Let the games begin!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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