A look at the roster the Seattle Kraken could have drafted.
Wouldn't that be something?
HockeyFeed
The Seattle Kraken have officially entered the National Hockey League as the league's 32nd franchise but for many fans they did so with a bit of a whimper, playing things very safe during the course of their expansion draft and seemingly building their roster with cap savings being at the forefront of their gameplan.
It will almost certainly prove to be a good gameplan in this flat cap era of the NHL with salary cap dollars being more valuable now than they ever have been in the past, but it didn't include any of the sexy moves that fans had been hoping to see. We might still see some big splashes from the Kraken in the offseason, both via trade and when free agency opens up on July 28th, but their initial roster wasn't exactly star studded.
Take a look at their picks:
Forwards:
Tyler Pitlick
Morgan Geekie
John Quenneville
Joonas Donskoi
Calle Jarnkrok
Nathan Bastian
Jordan Eberle
Colin Blackwell
Carsen Twarynski
Brandon Tanev
Alexander True
Yanni Gourde
Jared McCann
Mason Appleton
Kole Lind
Defensemen:
Jeremy Lauzon
William Borgen
Mark Giordano
Haydn Fleury
Gavin Bayreuther
Jamie Oleksiak
Dennis Cholowski
Adam Larsson
Carson Soucy
Cale Fleury
Vince Dunn
Kurtis MacDermid
Goaltenders:
Chris Driedger
Joey Daccord
Vitek Vanecek
Sure there are some very solid names on that list but I think you would be hard pressed to argue that it contains a great deal of star power when compared to some of the players that were snubbed by the Seattle Kraken for lack of a better word. The Kraken had the opportunity to go with at least a few star caliber players.
Just take a look:
Forwards:
Josh Bailey - Max Domi - Vladimir Tarasenko
Evgeni Dadonov - Alex Kerfoot - Jakub Voracek
Frank Vatrano - Cody Eakin - J.T. Compher
Nick Cousins - Derek Grant - Nic Dowd
Defensemen:
Marcus Pettersson - Dylan DeMelo
Nikita Zadorov - Troy Stecher
Jake Bean - Cal Foote
Kale Clague - Oliver Kylington
Radek Simek - Connor Clifton
Goaltenders:
Carey Price
Kaapo Kahkonen
Ben Bishop
Do you like the Kraken's approach or would you have tried to make a bigger splash right out of the gate?