Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

The Seattle Kraken Picked Players With An Eye Towards The Future

07/22/2021 at 8:04am EDT

from Chris Johnston of Sportsnet,

The Seattle Kraken looked at Carey Price, Vladimir Tarasenko, James van Riemsdyk, Ryan Johansen, Matt Duchene and others during the expansion draft process and said ‘No thanks, I’m good.”

In doing so, the NHL’s newest franchise put itself in pole position to race towards a new epoch of roster construction. The easy takeaway from Friday’s made-for-TV event was that Ron Francis left talent on the table. But the most significant thing he did was avoid putting a bad contract on the books.

“We think that's a valuable thing to have right now, especially in a COVID environment with the flat cap,” said Francis, the Kraken's general manager. “We went through our choices and there were some good players that were out there; maybe we weren’t comfortable with the cap hit on some of them, so we tried to draft the best team possible we could and still keeping our cap space available just to hopefully do some things as we move forward.”

In the very near term that will mean spending some money when the free-agent market opens next Wednesday. They staked claim to defencemen Jamie Oleksiak and Adam Larsson, plus goaltender Chris Driedger, during this week’s UFA interview period and are expected to take a run at Jaden Schwartz, among others, on the open market.

But Seattle showed patience during the 72-hour period where the rest of the NHL sat and waited on the sidelines while it selected 30 players.

read on

Create an Account

In order to leave a comment, please create an account.

About Kukla's Korner Hockey

Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.

Email Paul anytime at [email protected]

Most Recent Posts

Most Recent Comments

Comment by dca in Abel to Yzerman from the entry Same Lineup Tonight - 7 seconds ago
Comment by dca in Abel to Yzerman from the entry Same Lineup Tonight - 2 minutes ago
Comment by dca in Abel to Yzerman from the entry Same Lineup Tonight - 3 minutes ago
Comment by dca in Abel to Yzerman from the entry Same Lineup Tonight - 6 minutes ago
Comment by Kate in Abel to Yzerman from the entry Same Lineup Tonight - 14 minutes ago