The front office changes will continue around the NHL. This time, it’s with the Seattle Kraken, as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the President of Hockey Operations, Ron Francis, will be stepping down from his role. The Kraken organization later confirmed Friedman’s report, noting that Francis will step aside at the end of the regular season.
Technically, Francis has only been the Kraken’s President of Hockey Operations for one season. Before this year, he was the team’s General Manager for six seasons, even before they began playing in the league. Jason Botterill took over General Manager duties ahead of the 2025-26 campaign.
Although Francis crafted the team that qualified for the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs and subsequently knocked out the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, it’s been tough going in Seattle ever since. In their five seasons, the Kraken own a 174-187-44 record, without a clear pathway out.
There are several reasons for this. First, Francis invested a lot of money in questionable free agent signings. Philipp Grubauer, Andre Burakovsky, Alexander Wennberg, and Chandler Stephenson were all signed for relatively top dollar at the time, and the Kraken haven’t gotten a solid return on investment on any of those players.
Secondly, Francis built too safe a roster. As previously mentioned, while there could be some game-changing prospects on the way, Seattle’s forward corps is entirely built of middle-six pieces, save a few. The team attempted to acquire Artemi Panarin from the New York Rangers before the Olympic break, but the star Russian player was not interested in moving to the Pacific Northwest.
The fact that Panarin didn’t want to come is evidence of another issue entirely. Despite reasonable complaints about teams in no-income tax states, the Kraken have not been able to take advantage of this benefit like other teams. That’s been an important factor in how this team has become so directionless so quickly.
Regardless, this move will enable Botterill to take full control of the front office’s decision-making process going forward, or it may help Seattle adopt a more aggressive strategy. There should be multiple options available to them, and they’ll have plenty of time to make a concrete decision.
As for Francis’ future, there’s a strong likelihood he’ll be linked to the open position with the Toronto Maple Leafs. At the end of his playing career, the Sault Ste. Marie, ON native, waived his no-trade clause to facilitate a trade to the Maple Leafs, where he finished his 23-year career.
This is good news for Seattle, Ron Francis is ghastly as an NHL executive.
Yep, he really botched that expansion draft. He decided on “salary cap flexibility” over talent, thinking that he would be able to attract higher-end FAs and build through the draft. After 5 years… he hasn’t built anything. No one wants to sign with a bad/mediocre team. He had a successful expansion draft to try to emulate in Vegas, and outsmarted himself lol
Kurtis MacDermid agrees!
He should have spent a few years as the assistant first!
The Kraken are direction less, and they have built too safe of a roster over the years. The free agent signings never made sense. All those things are on Francis, and I’m glad he’s gone. But if you really look at what was available in the expansion draft, there wasn’t much there to pick from. It’s easy to say they didn’t do as well as Vegas, but they had far fewer good players to pick from. Go back and really look at people’s mock expansion drafts and you will realize that the team did about as well as anyone would expect. Hindsight is 20/20, and they weren’t perfect. But on the list of Kraken mistakes, the expansion draft isn’t high.
Great player, horrible front office guy.
So he’s just what the Maple Leafs are looking for.
Still better than Chris Drury.
Zero impact players from 5 years of drafting and poor results in free agency. I didn’t think Francis was all that bad in Carolina but why would the Leafs hire him? Why would anyone?
Frances and the Leafs. Oh if wishing made it so.
That is a disaster of a match made in heaven. One of these days Leafs ownership will realize that not all the GM’s and hockey ops personnel needs to be from Ontario.
Treliving not from Ontario.
Does anybody think Francis in Toronto makes that disastrous trade with Boston last year? As much as folks gripe about him, he didn’t make stupid trades in Seattle or Carolina. I expect Botterill to make a “big move” to put a stamp on this and get totally fleeced. GMs around the league can’t wait to take his call.
Huzzah! It’s a pity that Botterrill and Campbell aren’t following Francis out of the door though
The problem will get even worse considering that Washington state passed a 9.9% tax on millionaires recently.
Of all the franchises in the league I’d love to see relocated, that’s the one.
Is WA’s millionaire tax the same as CA’s tax? That is it includes prorated hours/days income from games played, activities and practices within WA?
If so, time to move the Kraken to Idaho and name them the Idaho Spuds.
Seattle is now the prime candidate to beat Edmonton, Winnipeg and Buffalo as the top city on players no-trade lists.
…and in case you missed it, the state just passed a 10% income tax on earnings above $1m. It goes into effect during the 27/28 season.
To be a bit fair to him, they have been mostly competitive for the 5 years. He will get another shot as a GM for sure.
Seattle made the playoffs just once.
Vegas missed the playoffs just once, made the Finals 2 times and won 1 Cup.
Both teams drafted according to the same rules.
I wasn’t comparing them to vegas though I’m not sure the same level of talent was available to them via the expansion draft. Just saying game in game out they haven’t been pushovers.
That’s mostly true. But the other 30 GMs learned from the mistakes they made prior to the Vegas expansion draft and made far fewer mistakes for Seattle to take advantage of.
The tax thing has become a (self fueling and fulfilling) trope in the NHL.
NFL and NBA players never talk about it and basically every single MLB free agent signs in NY or CA.
MLB has no salary cap, so players just go to whichever team offers the biggest contract (i.e. the Dodgers). But as far as the capped leagues, I couldn’t begin to explain why income tax is an issue for the NHL but not the NFL or NBA.
It feels like half the nba makes more than McDavid. I’m not sure it’s as much of a consideration for those guys.