Since their inception, the Seattle Kraken pushed back on comparisons to the Vegas Golden Knights, who rewrote the rules for NHL expansion teams by making the Stanley Cup Final in their first season.
“From day one, we’ve said we’re not Vegas,” Kraken general manager Ron Francis said on Monday.
There’s no debating that. Through 33 games in the 2017-18 season, the Golden Knights had a points percentage of .670 and were atop the Pacific Division. Through 33 games, Seattle has a .364 points percentage and reside in at the bottom of the Pacific — which is where you might expect to find a kraken, but not the Kraken.
This is a performance that pundits and predictive models didn’t foresee happening. Even those dubious about the Kraken’s potential for first-season success weren’t predicting a stumble out of the gate of this magnitude for the NHL’s newest franchise.
What’s gone wrong? There’s a burgeoning cottage industry of in-season autopsies from hockey analysts like Micah Blake McCurdy and Jack Han, and a comprehensive one from ‘JFresh.’
But we decided to go to the source and ask Ron Francis what’s gone wrong for the Kraken, what the plan is going forward and what this bummer of a season means to the NHL’s newest market.
ESPN: The Seattle Kraken have a .364 points percentage through 33 games. How does this track with internal expectations for the team?
Francis: I think it’s certainly been more challenging than we were hoping for when the season started. I think when we looked at things, and other people looked at things in the offseason, I thought we’d be a competitive team. You’re always hoping that things go right for you, that you have a chance to make the playoffs. Unfortunately for us, it’s gone the other way: Instead of going right, some things have gone wrong.
But the plan all along was to build this thing right from the ground up, long-term. Have a strong successful franchise. That’s how we drafted. That’s why we kept our cap space available. So that hasn’t changed.
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ESPN: But has this lack of success given new clarity to the plan? You’re not the Vegas Golden Knights, going to the Stanley Cup Final in your first season. You’re on a more traditional…
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