Inside the NHL
DETROIT — Our latest example of why most NHL fans would make lousy general managers is playing out this week as Friday’s noon PT trade deadline approaches.
Seemingly half want their favorite team’s GM to empty his farm system to land the star player perceived to be bringing them closer to a Stanley Cup championship. The other half recoils at the mere mention of sacrificing future pieces — even draft picks for hypothetical players years from stepping on NHL ice — to take a shot at winning it all unless every condition for contention is absolutely perfect.
Even when the answer lies somewhere down the middle, as it appears with this season’s Kraken, those advocating measured upgrades tend not to really grasp what’s fully at stake.
Which is a long way of saying most don’t have the stomach to do the job Kraken GM Ron Francis has in front of him. Francis has hinted at what’s become increasingly obvious watching big names come off the trade board: The Kraken aren’t making any major deals.
They might not make any, in fact.
As of Wednesday, most contenders in both conferences had fortified their lineups. In fact, every other Western Conference team in a playoff position has added through trades this past week.
Within the Pacific Division on Wednesday alone, the Los Angeles Kings acquired defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and goalie Joonas Korpisalo from Columbus, and the Edmonton Oilers snagged defenseman Mattias Ekholm from Nashville.
The division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday acquired Cup-pedigreed forward Ivan Barbashev from St. Louis.
For the trade-abstinence crowd, Kraken inaction would bring unfettered joy. On the flip side, some will wonder why Francis hasn’t bettered a team that’s been without injured top-line forward Andre Burakovsky for three weeks while winning just four games in February.
All I’ll say is there’s merit to both arguments. But that’s not the same as straddling the fence. I do have definitive opinions on this subject, starting with Francis needing to pick a side if he ever wants to win a title.
This isn’t about simply deciding to play it safe. Constantly taking the middle road rarely gets any GM of a contending team to the promised land. The call Francis faces is to either go for it now or defer that title bid by a season, maybe two. Wait beyond that with a playoff contender, and you take the risk of not remaining a GM much longer.
But you commit firmly to one of those two routes while targeting a specific end date.
That isn’t the same as all this down-the-middle stuff, which, while sounding intelligent in theory, rarely leads anyplace if carried out indefinitely. And that’s because even GMs trying to win championships won’t always succeed. The Golden Knights have spent five years trying and still aren’t there. So best not wait on the whole “trying” part too long. It might take six years to finally win it all, but you have to be trying well before that.
Teams that win tend to have a GM who doesn’t ride with conformists. They’ll buck the status quo, zig when we want them to zag and any other cliché that describes doing things we’d usually balk at.
Otherwise, we’d all make great GMs. And that’s just not the case.
So Francis avoiding significant deadline deals would indeed constitute a side chosen: The side of deferment until a better date, starting next season. But contenders don’t get unlimited deferrals. Despite the best-intentioned build-for-the-future advocates, the conditions for contention are rarely perfect.
You put things off understanding there might never be a better time than now to take your shot.
I have no doubt Francis fully grasps this as a former Hall of Fame player who won two Cups and knows how rare such opportunities are. The likely decision to defer attempting a deep run this time, even if he won’t admit out loud that he’s doing it, must be eating away at his competitive nature.
This is a guy who in 1993 sat for two days building his kids a swing set after his Pittsburgh Penguins were ousted by the New York Islanders on a Game 7 overtime goal. Francis was so chewed up inside by the loss he had to do something to stop thinking about hockey.
Still, when Francis makes the conscious choice to defer a Cup bid — which he would be unofficially doing if this Kraken roster isn’t upgraded — then that’s his side chosen. And it’s not necessarily wrong.
But it wouldn’t automatically be right.
The reality is, Francis might never again have conditions as ripe for a Cup.
His team has been right up there with the best points percentage in the Western Conference. Sure, the Eastern Conference arguably has the NHL’s six best teams, but win the West and you have to play only one of them.
And the Kraken appear to match up quite well with the odds-on Cup favorite Boston Bruins.
Put another way, Francis began shaping the Carolina Hurricanes nine seasons ago. They’ve finally blossomed into a Cup contender with likely their best team since. But just to reach the Final, Carolina must run a gauntlet of those other powerhouse Eastern contenders. Do they really have an easier path than the Kraken?
Remember, everybody assumed in 2019 that the St. Louis Blues had “peaked early” by winning a surprise Cup before they were supposedly ready. Well, good thing they won ahead of schedule, because that championship core never really got close again.
Anyhow, if Francis sits this deadline out, it might indeed prove to be the correct call. I’d say he’s earned some benefit of the doubt based simply on having worked the system to acquire Oliver Bjorkstrand from Columbus by trade last summer for a draft pittance. Snag additional value this offseason, and maybe you get a far-better-built contender.
Hey, it’s also possible the Kraken still surprise everybody with a deep playoff run this spring. In pro sports, anything’s possible. But a GM’s job largely involves playing the percentages, and Francis standing pat wouldn’t boost the Kraken’s odds this time around.
Depending on what other teams do this summer, there’s no guarantee those odds will be any better a year or two from now.
That’s what remains at stake for Francis. And why deferring on this opportunity would likely be anything but easy for him. No matter how obvious some would try to position the agonizing choice as being.