Kraken section starts at 46:10 https://www.sportsnet.ca/podcasts/32-thoughts/roster-freeze-and-boiling-tempers/
Highlights
- Friedman thinks the Kraken have been a good team to work with, even when they dislike what he reports. Very professional, very helpful.
- He thinks the situation with the questions to Lambert after the Colorado game was due to the internal pressure within the organization. "They had a bad day," and "they took responsibility, they apologized"
- Compares the situation in Toronto to Seattle, thinks they are "incredibly disappointed" internally to be in this situation after the GM and coaching changes.
- "The frustration and the pressure and the disasspponment out there is enormous."
- "Some of the games they've lost recently they played pretty well in"
- The Kraken have tried to make a big swing. They almost made one for Jorday Kyrou at the draft. Friedman thinks they will do it at some point.
11 comments
The team kinda sucks. I was extremely disappointed that Ron Francis was promoted last summer. Court is still out on Botterill IMO, same with Lambert, though I do think I like Lambert more than Disco Dan at this point.
The frustration is palpable and there is definitely a negative energy hanging over the team. Hoping they can pull it together in the New Year and get some momentum.
Would a move for Kyrou help the Kraken at the expense of whoever they’d have to give up in return?
The worst thing the franchise can experience is not disappointment, it’s apathy.
The Kraken play a boring style of hockey and enjoy real lackluster results. No superstars, no elite scorers.
The result? Outside of hardcore Kraken fandom, no one gives a shit.
Combine that with the Seahawks and – by god – the fuckin Mariners being good AND fun to watch? And the Torrent winning games and being very likable?
The Kraken are sitting firmly at the bottom of the Seattle sports hierarchy right now. At least the Storm have banners, even if the last couple years have been brutal.
Realize a lot is missing for this team but definitely a different team and results without Jaden Schwartz in the lineup…
One factor pressuring ownership that I haven’t seen mentioned is the NBA.
The NBA must be watching this shitshow, and I can’t imagine they live what they’re seeing from a likely new city and ownership group.
I keep thinking, ownership paid $650 million for this? A nearly last place team five years in is beyond disappointing. Couple that with the so far evident inability to develop players and the Kraken seem lost.
The time for big swings is long overdue.
Ownership is delusional. They are meeting expectations exactly. All of the national analysts took a look at this roster and predicted them to be bottom 5. Now here they are.
They definitely feel NBA pressure + pressure to retain season ticket holders. It hasn’t been all bad — we have a very good minor league system and a lot of talent coming up. But we need to be realistic about our NHL talent level and we need to give our young guys more playing time even if it is at the detriment of winning games. Shane Wright is never going to get better at taking defensive zone faceoffs if Stephenson gets all of them. Nyman isn’t going to learn anything from the press box (thankfully they realized that). We don’t need to max out our cap spending either with these shopping sprees for mediocre free agents. If we were in better cap position we would have more flexibility to improve the roster, instead we’re f***ing ourselves for years into the future. And LL’s system sucks hard, the players don’t like it (see Kakko’s comment), the fans don’t like it, and it doesn’t result in winning any more games than the last 2 coaches did.
*Compares the situation in Toronto to Seattle, thinks they are “incredibly disappointed” internally to be in this situation after the GM and coaching changes.*
*Really?* What changes from last year to this year would anyone expect to be significantly better? We shuffled some deck chairs roster-wise, went from an offensive minded coach to a defensive minded one, and now the problem is the opposite of what it was last year.
Not sure what ownership expected by continuing to play middle six players in top six roles. The defense is a solid group (middle of the pack, but definitely not in the lower third of the league) but the forward group is just… rough.
None of the centers are more than a 2C on any playoff team, and the good wingers are all 30+. Jared McCann is the best scorer on the team and he’s a middle six guy on a playoff team.
It’s painfully obvious at this point that this front office is way too precious with players they shouldn’t have any emotional attachment to. They could very easily be doing the Vegas thing (being successful) but they aren’t cutthroat enough with their assets.
FO needs to go. All of the moves this summer so clearly were going to lead to this and showed a lack of a serious strategy.
We needed to commit to tanking or go all in on a real first line player. When the later failed we should’ve gone all in with the tank, instead we signed gritty vets that block young players and got rid of the coach that despite flaws worked with our young players and played offensive hockey. Result was always boring hockey and bad results. I’m actually shocked that we are this bad but suck for Stenberg at this point.
Sounds like Marchment is drawing interest and the Kraken are ready to move on from him as well. That was earlier in the podcast. Elliotte wondered about a fit with Winnipeg.