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Snapshots: Bedard, Seattle, McCarthy

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Move over Alexis, a new Canadian prospect is here. Connor Bedard, the first player to be granted exceptional status in the WHL, suited up for HV71 in the Swedish under-20 league today. Bedard only turned 15 a few months ago and was picked by the Regina Pats first overall in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft, but is getting his first taste of play this season overseas.

The incredibly shifty, talented forward from Vancouver is eligible for the 2023 NHL draft but is already wowing scouts all over the world. His development is obviously extremely important, but a move like this to play overseas only highlights how difficult this season could be for many other prospects that are waiting on their WHL and OHL schedules to begin. Not everyone is Bedard, receiving a prime opportunity to play with a strong European organization.

  • The Seattle Kraken have hired seven new people for their organization, including former NHL forward Gary Roberts, who will receive the title of sports science and performance consultant. The other names, which include Michael Booi, Nate Brookreson, Jeff Camelio, and Tim Ohashi all seem to be strong hires with long successful resumes of their own. Roberts though will get the headlines, thanks to his yearly offseason strength and conditioning work with players like Steven Stamkos and Connor McDavid. Roberts of course is a former teammate of Kraken GM Ron Francis in both Carolina and Toronto.
  • The Washington Capitals have hired Kevin McCarthy as an assistant coach, joining Peter Laviolette’s new staff. McCarthy will work with the team’s defensemen and has worked with Laviolette for years, in Nashville, Philadelphia and Carolina. He joins a staff that also includes Scott Arniel, Blaine Forsythe and Scott Murray.

Snapshots: Palm Springs, Boughner, Engelland

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When the Seattle Kraken enter the league for the 2021-22 season, they likely won’t have a primary AHL affiliate yet. That’s because the new Palm Springs franchise announced today that instead of a downtown arena they will now be building a location in the Coachella Valley which is scheduled to be ready for the 2022-23 season. For 2021-22, since the team will not have the full complement of minor leaguers, the most likely scenario will be finding places for them elsewhere.

The unnamed AHL franchise will play in a privately funded building owned by the Oak View Group and The H.N. & Frances C. Berger Foundation. Construction is set to break ground in 2021 and it will be a 10,000-plus seat venue.

  • The San Jose Sharks are expected to remove the interim tag from head coach Bob Boughner in the coming days, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. Boughner led the Sharks to just a 14-20-3 record after replacing Peter DeBoer this season, but has a strong history with the front office from his multiple stints as an assistant coach. Boughner has plenty of experience behind the bench, having coached the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL for years and spending two seasons as head coach of the Florida Panthers.
  • Vegas Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon didn’t have a lot of answers regarding the goaltending situation for his team this summer and whether they would bring back Robin Lehner on a multi-year contract, but did shed some light on a different trade deadline discussion. Deryk Engelland, who has been a leader in Vegas since the franchise first joined the league, was offered a deal at the deadline to go to a team that wanted him. Engelland declined the opportunity, even though his lineup spot had disappeared and he wouldn’t be suiting up in the playoffs. McCrimmon told reporters including Nick Cotsonika of NHL.com that Engelland felt the Golden Knights had a real shot at winning the Stanley Cup and he accepted his role down the stretch. The 38-year-old defenseman played in 49 regular season games and is an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

Seattle Hires Dave Baseggio, Adds To Scouting Department

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The Seattle Kraken have made a large addition to their scouting department, hiring Dave Baseggio as the team’s first director of pro scouting. Baseggio comes over from the Anaheim Ducks where he spent more than a decade holding different job titles. Kraken GM Ron Francis released a statement explaining why Baseggio is the right choice:

Dave played at Yale, he was an economics major and captained the hockey team as a senior. He played professionally beyond that. He’s been around the game a long time. He’s bright and a good person who will fit into the culture we are building with the Kraken. He will generate a lot of ideas and earn the respect of our pro scouting staff.

The team also hired Andrew Allen, Lorne Henning and William White as pro scouts, while extending the contracts of five other scouts—Cammi Granato, Ulf Samuelsson, Stu Barnes, Dave Hunter and John Goodwin—through the end of 2019-20 “with the intention” of re-signing them for the 2020-21 season as well.

The group will have to use video to scout players in the 24-team 2020 playoffs as they work to prepare for the expansion draft.

Pacific Notes: Kraken Coach, Lennstrom, Hall, Chayka

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With Seattle revealing their team name on Thursday, the next big decision they have will be who becomes their inaugural head coach.  According to TSN’s Darren Dreger on the latest Insider Trading, the Kraken aren’t close to making a choice on that front and will wait until the conclusion of the upcoming playoffs at a minimum before doing so.  That will allow them to get a sense for any other candidates that may become available depending on how things go.  In the meantime, they have several veterans that they can do their due diligence on.  Dreger singled out Gerard Gallant who would be a logical choice given how he performed in a similar situation with Vegas in their inaugural season.  He mentions that Gallant is in the mix but considering how early in the process they still are, he’s far from an early contender.

More from the Pacific Division:

  • Earlier this week, the Oilers loaned defenseman Theodor Lennstrom to Frolunda but there was no word on whether or not it would be a full-season loan of a short-term one. GM Ken Holland confirmed to Postmedia’s Jim Matheson that it is indeed the latter and that the Swedish team is aware that Edmonton will want the 25-year-old back when the 2020-21 season is set to get underway.  Lennstrom is likely AHL-bound to start the season to get acclimated to the smaller North American rinks but could be a recall option at some point.
  • The recent meeting between Coyotes CEO Xavier Gutierrez and pending UFA winger Taylor Hall raised some eyebrows considering GM John Chayka wasn’t present. However, Kent Somers and Richard Morin of The Arizona Republic note that a low-ball offer was tendered to Hall at the meeting, suggesting that Gutierrez is running point on any negotiations at this juncture.  That would be an odd approach to take given that the GM has had little trouble getting their core players to agree to long-term extensions throughout his tenure in Arizona.
  • Even odder is that there are questions as to whether or not Chayka will be a part of Arizona’s 52-person roster in the bubble, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link). While it’s ultimately expected he will be, the fact that it’s uncertain plus him being taken out of talks with Hall for the time being is something to certainly keep an eye on.

32nd NHL Franchise Named Seattle Kraken

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Say hello to the Seattle Kraken. The new expansion franchise and 32nd NHL team has officially announced its name after months of anticipation. The team will go with a blue and teal color scheme as they prepare to join the league for the 2021-22 season. They will play at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, where a full reconstruction of the old KeyArena is taking place.

After the success of the Vegas Golden Knights, it quickly became apparent that the league would be looking for another strong ownership group to bring the 32nd franchise into play. When high-profile financial backers like David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer partnered with sports executive Tod Leiweke, that group was an obvious choice. Seattle as a market had been explored in the past and when the arena work was started it was obvious that an NHL team would follow.

The Kraken are expected to join the Pacific Division for the 2021-22 season, with the Arizona Coyotes switching to the Central at that time. There is an obvious geographical rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks that will likely be pushed by the league, but it’s hard to know just how well Seattle will navigate the expansion process.

The Golden Knights were one of the greatest expansion stories in sports history, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season. That’s thanks to the exceptional roster they built through savvy expansion draft maneuvers, something that may not be quite as easy for Seattle to accomplish.

Teams will have plenty of time to prepare their rosters for the draft—which will have the same rules, although Vegas will not take part—in order to not hand over the same kind of leverage to the Kraken. That said, with the flat salary cap there may be even more cash-strapped teams looking for help, something that Seattle GM Ron Francis could take advantage of.

According to Leiweke in today’s press conference, Seattle has already received over 10,000 season-ticket deposits and has more than 40,000 people on the waiting list.

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