u/juanthebaker

Following up on Corey Pronman's team pipeline rankings posted yesterday, this article shows how the individual players stack up league-wide.

Tiers 1, 2, and 3 are elite player, NHL star, and bubble NHL star/top of the lineup player, respectively. The Kraken have no prospects in these top three tiers. There are 8 players in the top 3 tiers, for context.

Tier 4 - Top of the lineup player (9-20):

15 - Chase Reid (Note: 4th overall D behind #3 Schaefer, #11 Lane Hutson, #14 Cole Hutson)

Tier 5 - Bubble top/middle of the lineup player (21-56):

22 - Jake O'Brien (Note: 9th overall C)

44 - Julius Miettinen

51 - Casey Mutryn

Tier 6 - Middle of the lineup player (57-156):

57 - Shane Wright

58 - Berkly Catton

82 - Jani Nyman

147 - Kim Saarinen (Note: 3rd overall G behind #52 Joshua Ravensbergen and #146 Jack Ivankovic)

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Jake O'Brien: Canada RW2

Chase Reid: USA RD1

Loke Krantz: Sweden RW4

There wasn't much commentary, but they called Reid a "strong, returning No 1" and noted the whole D corps had a strong showing in the summer showcase. They also lumped Krantz in with a "high compete" group for Sweden.

They also reported that it's tendinitis in O'Brien's knee that held him out of the summer showcase and hampered his appearance in dev camp. To my knowledge the knee injury had been reported as being minor, but not specified as tendinitis.

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Tl;dr:

Sam Blum: Mariners: B+, White Sox: D

Tim Britton: Mariners: B-, White Sox: C+

Scott Wheeler (prospect writer for The Athletic) put out his post-draft top 100 list for drafted prospects. To qualify, players have to be under 23 years old and not be established (semi-subjective) as a full time NHL player. The link is a gift article, free to all.

This top-100 list is broken into six tiers. For reference, the tiers include:

Tier 1: 1-4

Tier 2: 5-28

Tier 3: 29-54

Tier 4: 55-71

Tier 5: 72-88

Tier 6: 89-143 (including final cuts)

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On the list for the Kraken are:

Tier 2:

#5 - Chase Reid (best overall D prospect)

#20 - Berkly Catton (7th best center)

#24 - Jake O'Brien (10th best center)

Final Cuts (unranked, outside the top 100, but still considered Tier 6):

Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, Jagger Firkus, Jani Nyman, Ty Nelson.

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Two quick notables:

While the Kraken have no prospects in Tier 1, Chase Reid is #5, the top player in Tier 2. (Caveat: Recency bias is definitely a thing with prospects. The shine often comes off when they need to compete at higher levels.)

Seattle has the second most players in Tiers 1 & 2:

San Jose - 5

Seattle - 3

Calgary, Chicago, Rangers, Utah, Washington - 2

Anaheim, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Nashville, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg - 1

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Lastly, by inverting the rankings (converting position to ranking value) and summing the results, we can roughly estimate the total prospect value in those top two tiers (sorry, I'm not doing all 100). In reality, top ranked players are worth more than the arithmetic sum of their ranking. Buuut, I'm not getting paid to do this, so it's a decent first pass at total value. The upshot is that the Kraken have the 3rd highest value by this method, but San Jose is lapping the field.

I can't figure out how to add a picture in the body of a link post, so I'll add the table in the comments.

Source oilers now podcast

Quick notes from the Kraken section of the 4 hour mega wrap up of the 32 Thoughts podcast:

Chase Reid was a big win at the draft.

Shane Wright:

The team isn't happy with the quote from his agent. The quote was on the record, but he spoke to other teams and said the Kraken won't move him without a fair offer. Sounds like there is a market for him.

Direction of the team:

> "I look at all these guys here. Nyman, 21. Berkly Catton, 20. Winterton, 22. Beniers, 23. Samoskevich [...], 23. > > Ryker Evans is someone they believed in for a long time, he's 24. (👀) > > They've got another prospect that they feel really highly about, Oscar Fisker Molgaard, 21. [...] > > I think, those are your drivers, right? Those are the guys you build around. > > I know it's been hard for Seattle, but [...] look at Buffalo. A year ago lol where they were. Now you've got Hellebuyck and Trocheck saying if I can get traded there, I'm going there. There's no reason you can't be that. > > You just have to keep building up through those guys. And one day you're gonna get a big W and it's gonna change. That's the only way you can think. The only way."

Decisions need to be made on Dunn and McCann. No news on them.

> "Again, I don't think they should... They probably want to move this along as fast as they can but... If your best deal for Dunn and McCann (if you decide not to keep them), if your best moves are for guys who are a little bit younger, I don't think they should be afraid of that. They should be selling themselves as, "you're going to get your opportunity here." " > > [...] > > "I know Kraken fans are like "ugh", but I always believe everything is fixable. I don't think life can be lived any other way. Sometimes you need to take a step back to go forwards. If that's the way it's gotta be, that's the way it's gotta be."

I'll listen to the rest of the episode and add anything interesting if I hear it. Go USA!

Haven't seen this on the sub yet. There's some GM speak for sure, but I actually think this one's worth a listen.

Scott Wheeler has the Kraken listed as the no. 2 winner in the first round for getting Reid where we did. It's not strictly a numbered list, but we were listed second behind the Sharks (obviously). Also, it's based on value at their picks more than overall accumulated talent.

##Seattle Kraken

No. 7: Chase Reid

My ranking: 3

After using their first five first-round picks as an organization on forwards, the Kraken finally used their sixth on a defenseman. This was the draft to do it, too, with a couple of the big five D promised to still be available at No. 7. Reid fills a clear hole within Seattle’s pool and immediately becomes the best young defenseman the organization has had since its inception back in 2021.

Reid was my top-ranked D in the class. He’s a proactive offensive defenseman who joins the rush and activates off the line early and often, and then has the skating and skill to make plays off his offensive instinct. Despite being on the older side of the class, he has also progressed steeply over the last year and a half, particularly defensively. He has the attributes of a top-pairing offensive D and future power-play quarterback.

Here's the overall list (I'll mark the picks made before/around 7):

Winners:

• Sharks - Pick 2, 9+
• Kraken - Pick 7
• Leafs - Pick 1
• Jets - Pick 8
• Preds
• Mammoth

OT Winners

• Flames - Pick 6
• Canucks - Pick 3
• Ducks
• Kings
• Rangers - Pick 5
• Blues
• Red Wings
• Islanders

OT Losers

• Sabres - Pick 4
• Devils
• Blue Jackets
• Penguins
• Capitals
• Canadiens

Losers

• Flyers
• Senators
• VGK

Bonus points if you comment how many roster players get moved out.

Poll closes after 1 day (I assume 24 hours?).

View Poll

This came up on 32 Thoughts this morning, and I had missed these comments. I thought maybe some others had missed them too.

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Kelly Mccrimmon in his end of season presser got a question about why people don't like VGK. At one point he argued that Seattle had 3 years to prep for expansion as opposed to 11 months and a more favorable cap environment.

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It was bright up on the pod because Friedman made it sound like the Kraken org was taking or at least should take that personally, and may be a further motivating factor in being aggressive this offseason. To that end, he also said he anticipates Seattle to take a big swing at Tuch if he makes it to free agency.

Quick edit: Worth saying, this sounded more like speculation based on the organization's posture than a sourced rumor.

Clearly there are a lot of complicated feelings about Abbey Murphy and her politics. I understand. But I wanted to throw out a way to make something positive out of her being on the team.

PWHL Detroit is reckoning with this and BC-S. Their subreddit's solution was to pledge a nominal donation to charities supporting transgender folks for every goal she scores. Linked is a website they're setting up to facilitate the donations. There are posts about it on r/PWHLDetroit as well.

I think this is a great way to reconcile rooting for the Torrent's success (which will necessarily include success from Murphy) without compromising your values. Hopefully we can effect some positive change from this!

I don't have the technical expertise to set up something like this, or the familiarity with local LGBT+ organizations to recommend who to support. But I wanted to throw that idea out there in case anyone wants to run with it!

They play against the Kitchener Rangers. You can watch for free on Victory Plus. You need an account, but it's free to sign up and to watch. Pregame starts at 3:30.

Reminder: Kraken prospect Julius Miettinen is a on Everett's top line. It's also worth watching top prospect Landon DuPont.

Good breakdown of how many pieces we're missing to be a real contender. Spoiler alert: It's a lot.

Gift article, so you should be able to read it.