The Athletic Hockey Show - Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft recap

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Ian is joined by The Athletic’s Ryan S. Clark to break down the results of the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft and discuss the feeling around the city leading up to the picks being made, why big names like Carey Price and Vladimir Tarasenko went unchosen, the start of a potential rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks on opening night next season, and much more.And, don’t forget, you can sign up for an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All right, folks, welcome to it. It is a brand new, alive, almost edition of the Athletic Hockey Show coming your way late on a Wednesday evening, closing in on midnight eastern time here, but we're all wrapped up with the proceedings from Seattle with the expansion drafty and Mendus with you alongside our Seattle Cracken beat reporter Ryan S. Clark, joining me here late on this Wednesday night. Late for me, late for you as well on the West Coast. Ryan S. Clark, at the end of a very busy day, I can't thank you enough for joining me and giving our listeners a little bit of insight into a historic day for you in Seattle. Yeah, no, no problem at all.

Thank you for having me. And just as a programming note, if you're any weird noises in the background, like a turn signal or me going over a bridge, it's because, well, I'm currently driving home at the moment. So I apologize for that. Well, that's quite all right. Listen, we can appreciate the fact this has been a busy, busy stretch for you. so the fact that you can even squeeze us in is great. So, hey, listen, this is what I'm really curious about Ryan,

because we were all expecting five Pacific time, eight Eastern time on Wednesday. We would tune in and these picks would be unveiled one by one. It would be shocked. We'd be surprised. There'd be some drama, some intrigue. And instead, by the time we got to the early afternoon, the entire list had been leaked out.

And so I'm wondering what was the feel in Seattle and the feeling from league officials maybe, that a lot of the hype and a lot of the drama and intrigue evaporated over the course of the afternoon. You know, it all depends upon the source because, you know, there are fans who said that they saw it. And once they start seeing it take off, they decided I'm getting off social. I'm going to wait and just watch it that way. There are people who understand that this is the age we live in where it's sort of this social contract, everybody signs without really knowing they sign it.

And it's so different than if you watch a television show. or a movie. Like, you want to go see a movie or a TV show or you're starting to watch a TV show, but you know you run the risk of it being spoiled on social. So it's like, how do you navigate that? While there are others who say, hey, look, I couldn't get enough.

It was good to see what the team was going to look like. So that way I could have some time to kind of figure it out. But look, if you're the NHL and you're the cracking, you understand that, like, there's a possibility that these things can happen. So I think a lot of people were looking at this, Ryan, on Wednesday and thinking, okay, Ron Francis and the Cracken, they're going to make a whole bunch of side deals. And maybe it's not going to be kind of the extortionist price we saw with Vegas, but there's going to be a handful of deals. And yet it feels like we didn't really see anything. So walk us through what happened there.

And why didn't we see any side deals where, you know, Seattle maybe was able to pluck another asset? set or two from a different team? Well, the point Ron Francis made when he spoke with reporters was this, that yes, general managers had learned from the last few, well, the last expansion draft, excuse me, about just kind of the way this whole thing works and how you don't necessarily want to give away a player for many of them. It was sort of take who you need and we'll call it a day. And for others, there just may have been some prices that they felt were too high to pay

and said, you know what, if this is how it has to be, then we can live with that decision And so the reality of it is this. Like, yes, you have a team that for now hasn't made any trade. Of course, those could be announced much later. And from it, we could see all sorts of things happen within the landscape of this team. Because right now, when you look at the roster, there are some questions people do have, namely in the top six, but where's the scoring going to come from beyond who's already there? Are there things you do maybe in your middle six?

defense or they set and goaltending it looks like they are. But when you look at the amount of cap space that they have, look, it's the buzzword or phrase rather that everybody keeps hearing right now, which is this is a team that is going to weaponize their cap space. And when you think about it in that context and that construct, what does weaponize look like? And one of the reasons, or one of the examples you could use rather, is it's patience. They can afford to be patient. and for them, it's probably about using that patient to see what happens and what materializes over time. So, Ryan, not willing to pay the price, I guess, pun intended,

will take us right into the conversation around Carey Price, because I think there's a lot of people that once Carey Price's name came on the available list a few days ago, we thought, my goodness, Seattle can get off the ground running here, very much like how Vegas did with Mark Andre Fleur. You've got Carey Price. Can you give us a sense of how seriously the crack can consider taking Carey price or was this like a, forget it.

This guys get five years left and 50 million. Thanks, but no thanks. Francis talked about how they did their due diligence with medical in the sense of looking at certain players, what their medical history was. They looked at all these things like price, salary cap, and they just felt like for all the things that they wanted to look at, that they wanted to keep the economics in mind. And again, when you go back to how he operated and Carolina, that was the number one thing he had to do. Now, granted, the circumstances with the

hurricane was there was an ownership group where they had to be judicious with how they spent. The Cracken's ownership group has said, hey, we give you the green light to spend. And it's not that Ron Francis isn't going to do that, but it's just he's only going to do that in a situation where he feels like there's few questions. And with someone like Carrie Price, there were questions, and it's been talked about a lot this week. Like, for all the things, things Kerry Price does, there are only two goaltenders in the NHL who were 30 and older this season, who started more than 20 games in a 56 game season. One was Pecorina, who went 10, 2, and 1. The other one was Mike Smith, who was a 21 game winner. And when you

have a golf that large, is that really enough evidence for you to look at and say, which one could carry Price be? Because he's 33 going on 34. And by the time that contract in, he'd be 38 going on 39. And as we've seen in the flat cap era, there are teams that are hamstrung by large contract. You know, we talk about the players who make over 10 million each, but it even doesn't have to be that. Like, we look at other deals around the league with these figures of 8, 9 million annually. And it can be difficult to make things work. And if you're the cracking, it was all about how do you keep that financial flexibility. So that way, when you do invest your cap dollars, you know, okay, we feel comfortable with the value

and knowing that it's going to be sustainable for as long as the contract exists. So I would say when you look at the goaltending position, obviously they punt on Kerry Price, but Ryan, they also punted on some other pretty good goalies that have backstop their team to the Stanley Cup, Ben Bishop, Jonathan Quick, Tuka Rask, but all of them have, you know,

probably some health issues, some age issues, some cap issues. What's your feeling on the trio of goalies they selected on Wednesday night. So Chris Dreger from Florida comes in. He's essentially going to be the number one guy. You know, Vanisak was really good for Washington thrust into a situation where he wasn't supposed to be the starter,

but took some big minutes this season. And then they get Joey the cord from Ottawa. Yeah, they're not spending $5, $6, $7 million on goaltending. But do you feel like that trifecta will give them enough decent goaltending? Or is there something else they might do here between the pipes? Well, the thing is this, at minimum, you have a tandem because with Drigger, one of the things you saw this year in Florida was when he was playing, that team was not only getting wins, but they were getting wins at time when, let's say, if Bob Roski was in the net and there was a little bit of a difficult outing defensively, Driger provided that consistency. And not only that, but you get him at a term like 3.5 over three years, which that's a manageable term. You look at Vanichak, and for some people, there was a lot to like about what he did.

As someone who, again, you think about the way this season could have went. If Hendrik Lundquist is healthy, what does his season look like? Whereas if now you're talking about someone who, again, working in tandem, has some strong performances. And with Joey DeCore is someone that you can look at and you say, okay, you can bring him up in the event that you need a third goal tender. and it's something that you've seen a lot of teams do. But again, to go back to the finances of it all, you talked about Jonathan Quick. Believe Jonathan Quick's cap hit is what?

Like five, I want to say, around five, or maybe a little bit more than five. Again, sitting on I-5, so I don't have the numbers in front of me. But when you look at what those three goaltenders cost, those three goaltenders cost around $5 million combined. And so when you think about it from that standpoint, like, yes, you're going to get savings, and it's the kind of savings that you can put elsewhere

that allow you to do things. For example, like being able to take on Jamie Alexiak and offer him a deal that made him say, I'd rather go here than go into the market or someone like a Mark Giordano where with his cap hit over six, that's a contract that you can take on and not just take on,

but you can take on comfortably while still knowing you can go do other things. And, Ryan, we don't expect you to have cap-friendly up on your dashboard while you're driving back home in Seattle. But Jonathan Quick does have two more years left at a cap hit of $5.8 million. That's the cap hit. The actual dollars paid out. It's a little bit less, I think, in terms of the base salary, at least in the last year.

But essentially, you're looking at a $5.8 million cap hit, and you're 100% right. You could have brought in Jonathan Quick at 5.8, or you could have three guys at under that price. And I think you're exactly right. I think that's exactly what they opted to do. You brought up a really interesting name in Mark Giordano. And here's a guy that was arguably the face of the franchise, at least one of the stabilizing figures in the back end in Calgary. I would imagine probably some mixed emotions for Mark Giordano in leaving a place in Calgary.

Does he become, is he your best bet right now if you were laying odds that he's the captain of the Seattle Cracken in year one? He was asked about that. And he said, you know, you don't necessarily need a letter to be a leader. but he wanted to do whatever he could, whatever the organization would ask of him. And that role, now as for him leaving Calgary, he did talk about that. And he said, look, the possibility of it, you know, becoming real was something that, you know, it did hit him. And he's like, look, I understand the situation Brad Tree Living was in. And the way he talked about Tray Living, he was just like, you know, here's the reality of what he had to deal with.

He's like, it does not change my relationship with Brad Tray Living. I still have so much respect for Brad Shea living. And as far as the city of Calgary and those fans, I can't thank them enough. It's where I grew up. And that's just kind of the interesting thing about all this. It's like when you look at the composite of this team, you know, these are players that some of them are at a certain age

where like maybe they're at that age where having a new opportunity is a chance for them to jumpstart some things. For players that are a little bit further along in their career, it's a little bit of a new opportunity. after being in a place for a while. But for someone like Giordano, like it's the reality of like, you are not only a captain,

but you're a Norse trophy winner. You're the face of a franchise, but now like you're going to a city and you're going to an organization that is completely new, but at the same time, you're going to be a foundational piece in the sense of how that operates.

And so it's going to be interesting to see like how that sort of works, but to hear him speak, he definitely sounds like whatever the organization needs him to do. He'll do it. And I mean, yes, you expect to hear those things from people. But one of the themes you kept hearing from players that everyone spoke to was

they all kept saying, we really liked what we kept hearing from Ron Francis. It's about the vision of this team, what they want to do, where they want to go. And for us, it made us go, yeah, this is where we want to be. And, you know, I think I look at Seattle in the back end. You feel like Mark Giordano, as you mentioned. You know, this guy won a Norris trophy a couple of years ago.

He's probably going to be the anchor to this thing. They get Adam Larson. They get Alexiak. like as I look at this team, if you had to ask me, Ryan, like looking from my view, which is kind of the 30,000 foot view versus you and you're right in there, I like the makeup of this team on the blue line. And I'm thinking that's where they have a little bit of a position of strength. And it wouldn't surprise me if at some point in the days ahead,

they took some of those defensemen and flipped them out, right? Well, I mean, you look at it and it seems like that's what exactly should be to play. And that was kind of one of the big questions coming into this. And was like, what was going to be that position where maybe they pick up a few things and then you can flip those in the market? And from the sounds of it and the looks of it, maybe it is defensemen with some of the options they have just because, I mean, when you start looking at the names right there, it starts piling up really quickly about, okay, well, who is going to be on the outside looking in? And so when you have those kind of options, maybe those are players that you can use in other deals. to sort of facilitate the movement, you want and need to not only fill out what's, you know, the rest of the roster, but also when you look at what could happen with that top six.

Yeah, and, you know, that's an excellent place to go right now, the top six, because there were some pretty big names available, Vlad Teresenko, James Van Reimsdike, Jake Voracek, Getty Daddanov, like these are guys, Ryan, who are perennial 20-goal, 30-goal guys, consistent producers in the game. And yet they passed on all of them. And as I look at this team up front, Ryan, I see, in my opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm always willing to be wrong on things,

I look at this top six and I say, I see Yanny Gord, he's a top six guy. I see Jordan Eberley, he's a top six guy. But beyond that, I don't really see too much. You know, that's the interesting part is you kind of look at who are some of those middle six players who could be top six. six guys elsewhere. And let's start with a couple names.

One of them being, could Mason Appleton be one, maybe? It's hard to say at this point because we don't know what the roster is. You know, someone like Jonas Don Skoy in Colorado had that experience. I mean, there are times where he was playing on the top line with Nathan McKinnon when there were injuries there. So it's a possibility. So it's interesting.

Kelly Yarncruck is another name of someone who maybe he's a top six forward. with his team or maybe he's a middle six. Again, that's worth the make of his interesting here. But when it comes to some of those names you mentioned again, it just goes back to cap space and it goes back to looking at all their options because you think about someone like Van Reams back. And the fact that points per game-wise, it was the best season of his career.

If it had been an 82-game season and he'd been a new career high in that department. So that being said, you have to ask yourself if you're the cracket, is that a cap-gate you're willing to pay for? And that's just it is if you're them and you go into free agency, and this is where it gets interesting, you have the real opportunity to sort of set the terms here. Because the presumption is there's going to be few teams that are going to be able to challenge what you can do with money. There's an agent that I spoke to for a story we had at the athletic about what does this he look like in free agency. What could they do?

One agent called them a unicorn because it's like no one can do what they do. And so maybe if you're the cracking, you realize that. And then when it comes time to go into the market, you know that if it's someone you really and truly want, you can throw the sort of dollars at them that other people may not, but at the same time, you're only going to want to do that if you're 100% certain. And also you believe it's the best use of resources.

Two questions to wrap up this podcast with you, Ryan. Number one, we have a preliminary roster here. We know that some guys might move around. there's some additions that could be made. What's your confidence level with this group right now that they could potentially threaten for a playoff spot in that Pacific Division coming up this season? It's really hard to say because you get the feeling

that this roster isn't complete. And that's where, again, just do look at what they are. And so when it comes to predictions, it's just so hard to stay. To think of this, it's 48 hours ago, when all these hypotheticals are out there, yeah, absolutely. You add a few names.

You fill in certain pieces, sure, why not? But when you look at where this team is now, it appears like this is the unfinished product. And so because of that, it's just really, really difficult to say what this team would be, where would they go, and what their playoff chances might be. And the final question for you,

they kind of slid this news in there tonight. I don't question, man, we got time. I'm just trying to cross Lake Washington. We're good. You got time. Maybe I don't have any more questions. but listen, we don't want to keep you, we don't want to keep you too long. But I do have one other question, which is they kind of slid this in, Ryan,

tonight. And that is, look, the entire NHL schedule is going to be unveiled for the 2021-22 regular season on Sports Center on ESPN, 6 o'clock Eastern Time on Thursday. But they did let it slide. Seattle Cracken's home opener will take place October 23rd against drum roll, please, the Vancouver Canucks. And I want to know from your perspective, is that. going to be the rivalry. Is there, I mean, or is it going to be Vegas? Is it going to be one of the California teams? Or is this such a natural kind of I-5 rivalry that this is the, this was the natural

team to pick on opening night? You know, it's possible because to be, there's quite a few reasons to look at. Like you said, one, there is the fact that it's the geography they're close by. Two, it allows people who live in this city, the opportunity to go up and see them without having to really make a long trip. But in terms of it being like a rivalry, you know, it's hard to stage because everyone could go into a situation where you say this is going to be their rival, but then something else different happens. I mean, like we saw it in the mid-90s with the Colorado avalanche. Like Denver and Detroit are nowhere near each other geographically.

And yet it was one of the most bitter rivalries we've seen in the NHL. And it stayed that way for a long time. In fact, whenever the ads play the Red Wings, like there's still some of that. among fans. I mean, it's not what it used to be, but some of that still exists. And so when you look at who the rivalry, where the rivalry could be, it's hard to say. I mean, yeah, maybe there could be.

But then again, I mean, people thought the same thing when the Grizzlies came to Vancouver and the Sonics were still here, and that this was going to be a rivalry. And it never really quite materialized that way. So again, it's just going to be really interesting to see how it all works. Well, listen, Ryan,

we truly do appreciate you taking some time, And this has been, I'm sure, a bananas day for you. And I'm thinking right now as we wrap up the S in Ryan S. Clark, it better stand for sleep tonight because, my friend, you deserve a good night to rest after this day that you put in tonight. That's very, very kind of you to say. But no, I mean, I think right now is honestly when the work really begins,

just because, I mean, now you have a roster, not saying that work doesn't start before, but now it's like, okay, this is real. And that's one of the things Ron Francis said when they were done, with me, I got a chance to talk to him a little bit. And the last thing he said to me, he walked away was, yeah, now it's real. So

there you go. Well, yeah, listen, it feels real. And we do appreciate just you taking a few minutes to walk our listeners through kind of some of the thought processes that went behind some of the selections and what we might expect out of the cracking in the days ahead. Thanks for this, Ryan, and we're looking forward

to all your coverage here in the weeks and months ahead. Hey, you got it. Thank you for having me. All right. So thanks for this, listening to this, edition of the Athletic Hockey Show as we broke down the coverage of the Seattle Cracken expansion draft with Ryan Clark. That was certainly insightful. We want to remind you, if you're not a subscriber with us at The Athletic, just visit theathletic.com slash hockey show, and you can get a subscription for just $3.99 a month.