The Kraken

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CardsofSTL
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The Kraken

Post by CardsofSTL »

Image

Expansion hockey. Inaugural season coming to an end.

Cool name though. Logo needs a little work.
For better or worse, with much of it being the latter, the Kraken are about to finish making memories from their debut NHL season.

Yes, they’ve produced mostly dismal results expected from a typical expansion squad. No, they were not expected to. It has nothing to do with unrealistic expectations after the Vegas Golden Knights made the Stanley Cup Final their expansion season. It has everything to do with the Kraken themselves expecting closer to a .500 season given the advantageous rules they had in picking players compared with expansion teams of yesteryear.

The Kraken’s 54 points leave them on pace to finish with 60. That’s already more than double the 24 points logged by the Ottawa Senators, during their 1992-93 expansion season. It’s also better than the 21 points logged by Washington in 1974-75, or the 30 by the New York Islanders in 1972-73, the 39 by the San Jose Sharks in 1991-92 and the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999-2000, and the 53 by Tampa Bay in 1992-93.

But hold off on celebrations: Those teams were built with brutal expansion draft rules. And the Kraken won’t even match the 83 points registered by the 1993-94 Florida Panthers and likely not the 63 points by the 1998-99 Nashville Predators.

They also lag the 2000-01 Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild, who had 71 and 68 points, respectively. For an example of how rough those two teams had it compared to the Kraken, teams in the 2000 expansion draft could protect nine forwards, five defensemen and a goalie, or seven forwards, three defensemen and two goalies.

For the Kraken’s draft — same as with Vegas in 2017 — teams could only protect seven forwards, three defensemen and a goalie. Or, eight skaters overall and a goalie.

So, the Kraken were mostly guaranteed a top-nine forward, top-four defenseman and an experienced NHL goalie to choose off every roster. Columbus and Minnesota were getting fourth-line forwards, bottom-pairing defensemen and minor-leaguers.

They were each also picking players at the same time, meaning — unlike the Kraken — they’d often settle for their second choice. The NHL had also expanded the two prior years, diluting the talent pool.

Finally, the Kraken also had an exclusive free agency negotiation window before their draft. They used it to sign goalie Chris Driedger and defensive stalwarts Jamie Oleksiak and Adam Larsson.

The Blue Jackets and Wild paid just $80 million each in 2000 to join the NHL, which, even adjusting for inflation to $132 million today, is still only a fifth the Kraken’s $650 million entry fee. The Kraken paid the massively bigger amount to ensure more favorable rules so a “typical” NHL expansion season — by design — could never happen to them.
So they paid big money to try and stack the deck against having a weak first season and they still pretty much sucked. Let's Go Blues

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GeddyWrox
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Re: The Kraken

Post by GeddyWrox »

Interesting. Vegas really raised the bar for expansion team expectations.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: The Kraken

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

I went to two games this year. Fun team with a bright future despite sucking. Great names on the team already. Gourde is so fun. Vince Dunn just gets better and better.

They need a goalie and two more defenders and they have a team. They really do keep the puck down by the opposing net a lot, they just can't freakin' finish the play.

Goalie is their biggest hole. One good goalie and they're potentially a playoff team.

With how much money they sunk into the Seattle area bars with that logo, it ain't changin'

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CardsofSTL
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Re: The Kraken

Post by CardsofSTL »

I like some of their merch. And I was being earnest when I said the Kraken name for a hockey team is pretty killer.

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Popeye_Card
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Re: The Kraken

Post by Popeye_Card »

I don't think the Kraken did very well with the expansion draft. Immediately afterwards, it felt like one of those years following your fantasy baseball draft where you looked at your roster and thought "damn, I built a really bad roster."

Anyway, speaking of the success Vegas had early on, who would have predicted that they would miss the playoffs this year after coming into the season as a consensus top-2 team in the West (with the Avs) AND adding Eichel along the way?

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GeddyWrox
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Re: The Kraken

Post by GeddyWrox »

Popeye_Card wrote:
April 29 22, 10:53 am
I don't think the Kraken did very well with the expansion draft. Immediately afterwards, it felt like one of those years following your fantasy baseball draft where you looked at your roster and thought "damn, I built a really bad roster."

Anyway, speaking of the success Vegas had early on, who would have predicted that they would miss the playoffs this year after coming into the season as a consensus top-2 team in the West (with the Avs) AND adding Eichel along the way?
Yeah, their season was terrible. Plus now they are in terrible cap trouble. I heard they are nearly 2 mil over cap space just with the commitments to players who are already under contract for next year.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: The Kraken

Post by CardsofSTL »

Vegas is a dumpster fire.

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Re: The Kraken

Post by albertmvpujols »

Popeye_Card wrote:
April 29 22, 10:53 am
I don't think the Kraken did very well with the expansion draft. Immediately afterwards, it felt like one of those years following your fantasy baseball draft where you looked at your roster and thought "damn, I built a really bad roster."

Anyway, speaking of the success Vegas had early on, who would have predicted that they would miss the playoffs this year after coming into the season as a consensus top-2 team in the West (with the Avs) AND adding Eichel along the way?
I agree with this. Either teams learned to not trade bad contracts with 1st rounders/prospects due to the Vegas draft or Ron Francis had a terrible draft. The team doesn't have a top line player (though Beniers looked good and definitely has that potential) on a competitive team but they do have some depth. They also lack a top pairing defenseman, but again have depth on the back end. Top line forwards and top pairing defensemen are very hard to come by in the league. As long as they are patient I think they will get those through the draft. The goaltending situation looks bad and it costs $9.5 mil per year. I'd probably trade Binnington's contract for Grubauer's, but having to even think about that shows how bad that Grubauer contract is.

They are probably the furthest off from competing for a cup of any team in the league except for maybe Arizona, but Arizona is going scorched earth rebuild, has a ton of picks, and has Bill Armstrong running the drafts who I have a ton of belief in from his drafting with the Blues.

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: The Kraken

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

CardsofSTL wrote:
April 27 22, 11:23 am
I like some of their merch. And I was being earnest when I said the Kraken name for a hockey team is pretty killer.
Seattle Sockeyes would have been cooler. Alliteration. The black circles around the fish's eyes...would have been made for hockey.

Kraken is a little too "epic" for me. But I guess not the worst. I prefer the anchor logo than the S.

Many in this city wanted Sockeyes and seemed disappointed in Kraken name. I'm sure they came around quick though. Already a killer color scheme. Fits the city well. Got to have those teals/blues.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: The Kraken

Post by CardsofSTL »

No because people would immediately call them the Suckeyes. Which is what I call the Buckeyes here in Columbus when I am trying to piss people off.

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