Seattle roster filled, now to the business table

Well, we got some of the easy ones.

The Seattle Kraken are now more than a logo, a sweater and flag on the needle.

On Wednesday night, the Kraken became a fully rostered NHL franchise.

“We’re excited about what we have right now,” Seattle general manager Ron Francis said. “There’s a lot of opportunity to tweak our lineup over the next four or five months and we’ll look to take advantage of that if we can.”

GOALIES: Chris Driedger (Florida Panthers), Vitek Vanecek (Washington Capitals), Joey Daccord (Ottawa Senators)

“I couldn’t really sleep much last night, I was just really excited,” Driedger said. “A new chapter in my life and my career. This is a beautiful city. The fan base has been unbelievable so far. You obviously hear about the season tickets getting sold out in 12 minutes so you know it’s going to be electric. I can’t wait to get going on opening night.”

DEFENSEMEN: Haydn Fleury (Anaheim Ducks), Jeremy Lauzon (Boston Bruins), Will Borgen (Buffalo Sabres), Mark Giordano (Calgary Flames), Gavin Bayreuther (Columbus Blue Jackets), Jamie Oleksiak (Dallas Stars), Dennis Cholowski (Detroit Red Wings), Adam Larsson (Edmonton Oilers), Carson Soucy (Minnesota Wild), Cale Fleury (Montreal Canadiens), Kurtis MacDermid (Los Angeles Kings), Vince Dunn (St. Louis Blues)

“There’s a good mix of abilities, real good mix of different abilities at all the positions,” Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s a ton of character and there’s a ton of competitiveness on that board. That’s a great starting point.”

FORWARDS: Tyler Pitlick (Arizona Coyotes), Morgan Geekie (Carolina Hurricanes), John Quenneville (Chicago Blackhawks), Joonas Donskoi (Colorado Avalanche), Calle Jarnkrok (Nashville Predators), Nathan Bastian (New Jersey Devils), Jordan Eberle (New York Islanders), Colin Blackwell (New York Rangers), Carsen Twarynski (Philadelphia Flyers), Brandon Tanev (Pittsburgh Penguins), Alexander True (San Jose Sharks), Yanni Gourde (Tampa Bay Lightning), Jared McCann (Toronto Maple Leafs), Kole Lind (Vancouver Canucks), Mason Appleton (Winnipeg Jets)

“We definitely have a lot of character,” Eberle said. “It’s going to be a very competitive training camp. That’s what you want. For everybody it’s a fresh start and it’s a unique experience, but anytime you get that fresh start, guys are going to be trying to earn spots. You get that competitiveness in camp. I think that’s what you build teams around.”

Our mock expansion draft was, well, sketchy at best.

The current salary lines and cap hit data are the starting points.

Now the real work begins.  There are four unrestricted free agents in the final roster from Wednesday night.  Bayreuther, Larson, Driedger, and Oleksiak will find new contracts.

Seven restricted free agents are up for new deals as well.

Mark Giordano was the big name pick from the Calgary Flames. Will be interesting to see his leadership role on the Seattle roster.

“When you first see the picks, it’s amazing how many good players are available around the League,” Giordano said. “A ton of young talent, obviously, coming into the lineup. Like we saw in Vegas, there’s an extremely large amount of players who are great players who were available, and I think it was a great start today and we’ll see what happens over the next couple of months.”

Seattle picks second in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft this week.

“There’s potential to get somebody to step into your lineup out of the draft,” Francis said.

There is also free agency, and the Kraken may have some cash to spend on available players.  Will Seattle be able to attract talent with the current expansion draft results?

“That would be our plan, yeah,” Francis said. “Certainly there’s guys that were protected that might be available. So we’ll certainly look at who is out there on the 28th and hopefully we can entice more guys to come and join us.”

Table by SportingNews.com