The Daily Faceoff Show: Should the Kraken sell at the trade deadline?
The Seattle Kraken certainly aren’t seeing the same success as the Vegas Golden Knights did in their first season.
Ryan Clark of The Athletic joined Frank Seravalli and Bryce Salvador on The Daily Faceoff Show on Monday to discuss Seattle’s start, what to expect moving forward, and how the team can approach the trade deadline.
Seravalli: “The Kraken are 5-12-1 to this point and I’m curious about what the mood in the market is like. We’ve been here before, we see that this is much more in line with a typical start to an expansion franchise. But is it all still sunshine and rainbows in Seattle?”
Clark: “It’s never sunshine and rainbows because we’re in the rainy season. But, to be serious, it’s been interesting because there have been the people who have wondered if this was going to be Vegas 2.0 but, and this was something Philipp Grubauer said the other day, this wasn’t going to be Vegas 2.0. Nobody knew exactly what it was going to be, but if you think about all of the expansion teams who have come through, expansion teams usually don’t do what the Golden Knights did.
“But at the same time, there’s been a bit of a learning curve in the sense of people getting to know the system and the structure and how to operate. So when you look at the six-game losing streak that they were on, which ended on Sunday night with a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals, one of the things that players talked about is they were getting away from their structure of being an aggressive, forechecking team.
“Once they went down, whether it be by a goal or two, they were trying to chase the game in a way that went away from that system. Last night, they stuck with the system, got the quick start and came out with a win.
“Right now, people don’t know what to think. The closer you get to Thanksgiving, depending on where you’re at in the standings gives you an idea of what your season is going to be. As to what this team is going to be, it seems like that’s still a little bit of a mystery.”
Salvador: “When we look at general manager Ron Francis, is he going to have to start to assess what he does with some of his UFAs? You’ve got Mark Giordano. He’s on a one-year deal, he’s a UFA, would they trade their captain? What should this team do? Just stay the course?”
Clark: “It’s really hard to say at this point because, again, in the grand scheme of it, it’s November and there’s still a lot of time. But we’re getting to that quarter point in the season where you start to get an idea of who you are.
“I had a conversation with a front office executive recently and one of the points that got made was let’s say the Kraken are a team that becomes a seller, you look at what the market brought last year, especially for guys on expiring contracts, and the Kraken have some cap space, so there’s a chance for you to leverage those things to get what you need for the future.”
You can listen to the full episode here…