After a lot of back and forth on Monday and a final pruning this morning after getting most of the way there on Sunday, I am finally finished assembling a Seattle Kraken lineup that I am mostly satisfied with, mostly.
I ended up selecting the mandated 14 forwards and 3 goaltenders, and like George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon did with the Vegas Golden Knights, used all four non-mandated spots on defensemen to end up with 13 of those.
22 of my selections are under contract for the upcoming season and I have six restricted free agents and two unrestricted free agents, one of whom is Florida Panthers goalie Chris Driedger who, according to reports, will be selected and signed to a new contract, on my roster. So really just one UFA selection, which if I remember is also what Vegas did.
The current cap hit for my roster is just over $62 million, but the plan is to deal away the glut of extra defensemen and lower that number.
I have given my faux Kraken what I think is a good mixture of grit and scoring punch and kept the roster relatively youngish. There is a lot of flexibility going forward as there are only eight players (nine if you include Driedger) under contract for the 2022-23 season.
This hypothetical Kraken lineup would be competitive in what is looking like a down year in the Pacific Division, and if it sunk like an anchor, there are plenty of attractive pieces that could be moved to contenders at the trade deadline.
Without further ado, here is LBCs mock Seattle Kraken, which was assembled with CapFriendly’s wonderful Seattle Expansion Draft simulator.
Forwards
Defense
Goalies
Side deals
My mocker accounts for at least one side deal. I predict Seattle will get a sweetener from the Toronto Maple Leafs to select Kerfoot over recent acquisition Jared McCann. If I were the captain (I mean GM) now, I would have taken McCann or Travis Dermott over Kerfoot.
Our very own Frank Vatrano is rumored to be heading to the Pacific Northwest in a side deal for real, with a player perhaps coming back from the Kraken, We’ll have to wait and see on that.
*** Assemble your own Seattle Kraken roster in the comment section. Let’s see who comes closest to duplicating what Ron Francis does in the real world, or if you just want to Fleetwood Mac it and go your own way, that’s fine too. Just have some fun with it, nothing up for grabs here.