Why is LV more Successful than Seattle?

[CaptHowdy00]

Is the brain trust for the Knights better than the Kraken?

 

[Stunner_At_Staples_Kings]

It didn't make sense what Seattle did at the time of the expansion draft, and it makes less sense now. The only thing they did was get a low cap, and relatively young team. Makes me believe they knew they'd make money regardless of roster and were just cruising on the demand of all the early season tickets they sold. I assumed Ron Francis had deals in place to justify how he drafted, but when it was later revealed he did not, I sort of had to give up trying to figure out what their agenda was. Make money and put out an average product? Money with the new team was basically guaranteed. As for Vegas, the deck seemed stacked for them and they made a bunch of great moves. But they've been chasing "The shiniest toy in the box" every year now and I think it's catching up with them. Having zero loyalty to players is also a bad look. Fleury coming off a Vezina having to find out through Twitter that he was traded is not a good look. Lehner is okay but I don't see him being that guy to take them to the next level, so I feel like Vegas isn't as strong as they might have been last year. I really thought when they beat the Avs, they had a real chance. Still surprised they lost to Montreal. Pacific is real weak top to bottom, so they should be a higher end playoff team, but I don't know beyond that.

 

[Podunkparte]

Hahaha, I thought this was a Raiders/Seahawks thread.

Carry on.

 

[Kings4OT]

Francis made ridiculous moves imo as you said, only made sense if deal were in place....they passed on some good players

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Well as stated the rules were bent for Vegas, and McPhee capitalized on other GMs' fears of losing good players. I do agree that with all the trades and UFAs and moves they have made since that 2018 run, it has indeed caught up to them. If I recall, they don't have a single 1st round pick of theirs in their system - all being moved out to acquire the big name available every year and other moves.

As for the Kraken, Francis' moves were suspect at best but also I saw they have 16 free agents (I believe 8 RFA and 8 UFA). They're not big names for the most part - the two biggest I can see teams taking a chance on are Giordano (UFA, and defense is always sought after for PO runs) and McCann (RFA) but depth players for a contending team too like Jarnkrok and Johansson (both UFA) as well - so my guess is come the March 21 TDL he will be flipping those to stock up on future picks.

 

[Fox4Kings]

Having a local team has been cool to see (I live just north of Seattle) and it's really increased the hockey presence here which I love. Seeing Kraken gear all over the place has been great, normally it's just Seahawks apparel.

As for the draft, sure it's easy to go back now and pick it apart, but I don't know if there are any glaring mistakes. What would you have done different? Francis had a plan, it just hasn't worked out thus far. The plan was to have solid goaltending and big strong talented defenseman, with a bunch of gritty 2 way forwards and win games 3-2. On paper to begin the year, the goaltending and defense looked pretty solid. Grubauer just came off being a Vezina finalist and Driedger had a phenomenal year in Florida. Grubauer has been garbage. The defense has not played up to their potential either and have been turnover machines. Gio has really showed his age and I don't think has made a great audition this season to be worth much to a contender unless you want a 5-6 D men, then he is great.

The deck has been stacked against this team from the get-go with COVID, they had maybe 1 game in the preseason that the whole team played together and took another several weeks into the season before game number 2. They are at a huge disadvantage any time they have an injury or COVID related scratch because they have no depth in the organization to pull from. Heck, they don't even have their own minor league team yet as they are sharing with Florida! They are now missing their top line winger in Jaden Schwartz and also Brandon Tanev who has been the team spark plug. Other than Eberle and Mccann, pretty much the rest of the team has underperformed. Donskoi has actually played really well with his 2 way game but is just snake bit when it comes to putting the puck in the net. He's a 20 goal guy and yet has 0 goals this season. It's sad, because despite that he has still been one of their better forwards.

Vegas really capitalized with their draft and GM's learned a lot form their past mistakes and had plenty of time to prepare for Seattle draft. Even so, Vegas struck lightning in a bottle and put everything together.

I think Francis was smart in being patient and not spending everything to get right up to the cap. He wants to develop the team, who is going to stick and who is not and figure out the identity of the team. For example the Grubauer contract is already looking like a complete bust. I think with a little more time to gel and with at least average goaltending, this team should be a lot better next season.