Four Biggest Takeaways From The Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft

The Seattle Kraken were officially introduced into the NHL this past week, with the expansion draft coming and going. They were able to select one player from 30 NHL teams, though the Vegas Golden Knights were exempted from this draft. A lot of people are wondering how the draft went for them and how they were able to organize their new roster, so we are going to go over some of the top takeaways from the draft. Kicking it off with their insane amount of cap space that they still have.

A Ton Of Cap Space Available

According to CapFriendly, the entire roster for the Seattle Kraken’s costs around $52.6 million. It was clear that Seattle wanted to keep their options open and not limit themselves in the future with no financial flexibility. Their organization could be prepping for a huge splash in this upcoming free agency class, as there are quite a few big names coming up that could drastically improve their team immediately such as Gabriel Landeskog and Dougie Hamilton.

Defense Oriented

The Kraken didn’t want to get all fancy with their selections, instead they kept their cap hit low and their defense at a high. It seems like the majority of the players they chose are great two-way players like Jamie Oleksiak, Mark Giordano and Adam Larsson. Even if you look farther down their roster into their depth, you could tell that they wanted strong defensive players to help establish a culture for their new franchise straight away. We may be able to see this strength on full display this upcoming NHL season if they are able to stay healthy throughout the offseason and get their chemistry down.

Talent

Seattle did a fantastic job at keeping their budget low while simultaneously bringing in top talent to their roster. For example, they chose not to grab Carey Price from the Montreal Canadiens and instead went with both Chris Driedger and Vitek Vanecek to form a solid duo at the goaltender position. They also grabbed Yanni Gourde, a player that has won multiple Stanley Cup trophies with the Tampa Bay Lightning, though he is still recovering from shoulder surgery at the moment. We already talked about their addition of Giordano and Larsson earlier as well. It may not seem like it, but this group seems ready to compete straight away with the way that their roster is currently formed.

Less Trade Leverage

Back when the Vegas Golden Knights were initially introduced to the league, they were able to pull off a multitude of trades before their first season. They were able to work deals with other teams in order to save certain players in the draft, allowing Vegas to rack up more talent and draft picks in future years. Seattle didn’t have that same luck because most of the opposing teams were far more prepared for the expansion draft then a few years ago. Also, they had to deal with the Golden Knights swooping in and helping other teams out for even more draft picks because they were exempt from this draft. Still, the Kraken were able to come away with a nice draft despite not pulling the trigger on many trades.