Andre Burakovsky and Justin Schultz GREAT COMPLIMENTS To Building Seattle Kraken

2 Comments

1. Aaron hockey 2 years ago

   I hope so We need to make at least the playoffs this year

2. The Tez 2 years ago

   If memory serves from couple decades ago, GM Ron Francis was a NHL Center not a D man wasn't he?

   G Chris Driedger is out until at least January or something like that recovering from serious knee injury while playing for Team Canada, he had to get surgery to repair it. So after likely knocking rust off & regaining confidence in surgically repaired knee in the AHL for a bit, he'll prob only play in 10-15 maybe 20 NHL games unless Grubauer is/also gets injured. Grubauer will be asked to take on true #1 G amount of minutes & games for 1st time in career, he's always played in much more of a #1 A/#1 B tandem setup. Jones is def sub par as a #2 G IMO, but probably about as good as they could get (without giving up some solid assets in a trade) even with overpaying a bit & adding trade protections to contract. When considering how sub par Grubauer & Driedger played in net behind this team, how poorly G J Daccord played in limited NHL opportunities, having Jones & Daccord as backup options to Grubauer who'll be under highest workload of NHL career is quite worrying.

   RH D man Schultz is a serviceable bottom 3 short term bandaid that helps them sort of bridge fill a need for an at least somewhat NHL experienced, has some O & possibly #2 PP unit abilities, RH shot D man… Who will hopefully help Sea better implement & execute their scheme more effectively which could help overall team develop & learn, while hopefully granting Sea at 1-1.5 years maybe 2 yrs, to develop their young D man & ideally otherwise also find what they need & want in way of D man (namely younger, either very O capable O minded with decent D or pretty O capable with very solid to pretty good D 2 way, legit #1 D man, and a younger, solidly good+ top D man pairing caliber partner). I'm not a huge fan of move at quite that much AAV for 2 yrs but understand it was kinda necessary, and it's better in long term than signing Klingberg to a 6+ year, 6.5-9 mil AAV contract.

   Burakovsky was a modestly decent signing for that AAV & term but a tad more on both than I'd have liked to see (4.125-4.66m for 3 max 4 yrs would've been my ceiling on him). He def should help the PP unit out, help get bit more good shots on goal & improve scoring a bit, but he's a significant liability on D side of his play. Also don't think there's really any tangible evidence at this time to suggest he'll put up anything too close to let alone surpassing his O production at even strength with Col Avs, he had much more O capable D man on his team, generally had the opponent's F line & D man pairing matchup advantage a fair bit more often than not, especially as compared to in Sea if he's playing on the top F line, capped off overall by playing on a Col Avs team who's scheme & style of play is much more conducive to generating O compared to Sea more reserved, pretty focused on everyone playing solid 200 foot D, 2 way game.

   Trading for Bjorkstrand I like a fair amount (especially if Sea ends up trading 1-2 of other 27+ ideally 30+ yo F making 3.5-5.5m AAV by by trade deadline, plus maybe some additional assets if can land an even better, 25 yo or younger potential legit top pairing D man and or same for potential #1 F line Winger. Or at least good draft value assets). I think he fits the bill a solid bit better overall compared to Burakovsky. Just at this exact moment kinda wished Sea had traded for Bjorkstrand before & instead of signing Burakovsky to a 5.5m AAV 5 year contract.

   Last note, Grubauer is highest paid player on roster at 5.9m AAV, the 5.5m AAV guys are tied for 2nd highest paid on roster, though are highest paid skaters.