Fistfullofbeer
Moderator
Would be a good idea to use this for the offseason chatter instead of using the 2023/24 Roster discussion. We can discuss offseason moves, etc. here.
Hakstol may come back next season but not having the confidence of Francis definitely puts him in the hot seat.
I guess the question is If he do trade away some vets like Gourde, Tanev or whoever and have to rely on younger players, is Hakstol the man to develop them, especially with his job at stake if he survives the offseason?I guess what's disappointing to me about this one is that Hakstol honestly did a perfectly adequate job with the flawed roster that Francis has assembled, and the issues this team is currently facing arent particularly solveable by Hakstol but rather Francis. So...who is "evaluating" Francis, then?
If you asked me before that quote, I would have put Hakstol's chance to be back at 90%. Now, about 70%.What are the chances they do move on from Hakstol? How soon do they typically make those decisions? I know NFL has black monday
If you asked me before that quote, I would have put Hakstol's chance to be back at 90%. Now, about 70%.
A lot of his quotes were interesting. One that kind of stood out was the one below. I wonder if he is seriously thinking of flipping some of our prospects for immediate help.
Would really depend on the return. We have quite a few forwards in our prospect pool. Outside of Wright, I don't really consider our forward prospects untouchable. Not that I am advocating moving them but we really have quite a few:Who makes sense though to trade prospect wise? I don't think there's a log jam anywhere quite yet
Meh. I think he can still get one. GM's are weird like that.I think the window for getting a 1st for Gourde, even a late one, closed at the trade deadline.
I don't see it as a responsibility thing. He could very well love our prospects but may consider a lot of them in the same tier. That means moving one of them does not harm the long term future of the team. Ofcourse, the prospect he trades could end up being a star but there is a bigger chance that he does not.Maybe Francis isn't that high on the forward prospects in the system, but he drafted them so the responsibility is his.
If this is the plan, though, colour me apprehensive; I don't like the idea of trading potential high first round draft choices at all,
Some more from Francis
Kraken Notes: Hakstol, McCann, Dunn
The Kraken haven't yet decided whether to bring head coach Dave Hakstol back next season, GM Ron Francis said Monday (via Geoff …www.prohockeyrumors.com
I'm curious to see what he does but looking at his quotes it seems ownership wants to win now and asked him to be aggressive.
I would go the other way but if he does go for it, I hope it's not some half a$$ed crap.
I know Brock Huard isn't a hockey guy but thought he put it pretty well this morning when he said the Kraken ownership are fighting for relevancy in this market when you are competing against the Huskies who are coming off a national championship appearance and seem aggressive with this new coach, the Seahawks clearing house and aiming to contend soon, Mariners being a bubble team. You can't afford too many blah seasons like last (and that doesn't include any future Sonics that you would share an arena with)Yeah. I am pretty sure they are going to try and win now. I would not be shocked if they go hard after Guentzel or Reinhart in FA. But we need to lighten the roster first to make those spots. I mean who do you start moving to the bottom-6?
McCann-Beniers-X
Y-Wright-Bjorkstrand
** X is the UFA acquisition.
** Y is one of Tolvy, Eberle, Burakovsky or Schwartz.
The ideal fit for Y is Bura since he has shown to be pretty ineffective in a bottom-6 role. So that leaves Tolvy, Eberle, Schwartz, Gourde all for bottom-6 roles. Sure it adds depth but that is going to be a very expensive bottom-6 after Tolvy gets his new deal. Add Tanev to the list as well.
The only pieces from that bottom-6 we can move are Tolvy, Gourde and maybe Tanev. Of those three, I would rather keep Tolvy. Maybe I am being overly optimistic here but I do think that adding that 1 "elite" 1st line player to the roster, the snowball effect will improve the team considerably.
Yeah. I am pretty sure they are going to try and win now. I would not be shocked if they go hard after Guentzel or Reinhart in FA. But we need to lighten the roster first to make those spots. I mean who do you start moving to the bottom-6?
McCann-Beniers-X
Y-Wright-Bjorkstrand
** X is the UFA acquisition.
** Y is one of Tolvy, Eberle, Burakovsky or Schwartz.
The ideal fit for Y is Bura since he has shown to be pretty ineffective in a bottom-6 role. So that leaves Tolvy, Eberle, Schwartz, Gourde all for bottom-6 roles. Sure it adds depth but that is going to be a very expensive bottom-6 after Tolvy gets his new deal. Add Tanev to the list as well.
The only pieces from that bottom-6 we can move are Tolvy, Gourde and maybe Tanev. Of those three, I would rather keep Tolvy. Maybe I am being overly optimistic here but I do think that adding that 1 "elite" 1st line player to the roster, the snowball effect will improve the team considerably.
Trade. UFA. Much easier to get a 3C than an elite top line forward.and who's gonna replace gourde?
Trade. UFA. Much easier to get a 3C than an elite top line forward.
We need to be looking at how to improve the roster, not how to retain the same players. Plus Gourde is a pending UFA after this season. I do not believe losing Gourde would prevent us from making the playoffs.
We don't need to open an additional spot when Gourde leaves. The spot gets opened when he leaves. The challenge would be moving one of Tolvy, Eberle or Schwartz to the 4th line. Its not ideal or fair to any of them, but something we need to do if we want the roster improved.but if we need a spot for a for a top line player getting rid of Gorude, you'll need to open another roster spot just to fill that 3C spot.
I just saw how many goals Geekie and Sprong scored for their respective teams. Daaamn. Not saying they would have done it here but that would have made them 3rd/4th top scores in the Kraken.
We don't need to open an additional spot when Gourde leaves. The spot gets opened when he leaves. The challenge would be moving one of Tolvy, Eberle or Schwartz to the 4th line. Its not ideal or fair to any of them, but something we need to do if we want the roster improved.
Hypothetically, lets say we acquired Guentzel as a UFA. Same problem. We need to move Schwartz, Eberle or Tolvy to the 4th line. But not just that, with Tolvy's raise and Tanev's current salary we are talking of a very expensive bottom-6. This is assuming we are not already over the cap.
But here is the thing. There are not many solutions to our problem because the contracts of Bura and Schwartz make them hard to move, even if they did not have clauses. You want to keep Gourde, then Francis may have to consider trading Tolvy instead of him IF he wants to improve the roster. I am against this but can warm up to it, depending on what player we are getting for the top line.
Do you have any alternatives on how to improve the roster? The current roster is built for mediocrity. I don't see any of our current prospects jumping in and making an impact any time soon. The alternative to that would be deciding that you don't want to improve the roster and are willing to wait till you have Beniers as a legit 1C, Wright as a legit 2C and atleast 2 of Rehkopf, Nyman, Firkus, Sale or any of our current prospects ready to step in as legit top-6 forwards.
TLDR: Improving the roster for next season will require us to move player(s) out. Either for cap space or simply creating roster spots.
Yeah. I was playing around with capfriendly, though I my estimates for salaries may be way off.Have you tallied it up on armchair GM? I'll believe we're running out of cap space when I see it, even with an imaginary Guentzel in place.
As for Schwartz, Eberle, or Tolvanen, I don't have any problem with having a deep team and a veteran or two parked on the 4th line for a bit. There will be injuries. Schwartz himself will probably be injured, and he's also very old and slow and should maybe be on the 4th line next year anyways.