We are still two years away from welcoming a Seattle franchise into the NHL but already the expectations are being set against what the Vegas Golden Knights have achieved.
The Vegas Golden Knights have been a resounding success since entering the NHL in 2017, hitting home run after home run during their two years in the league so far and avoiding a plethora of strikeouts. In other words, the franchise have rewritten the rule book and reset the standard for expansion teams.
As such, the Seattle franchise, who have yet to announce a team name, may well feel considerable pressure on their shoulders when they enter the league prior to the start of the 2021-22 season. Expansion teams in hockey won’t ever be looked upon the same now, and they have the Golden Knights to thank for that.
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However, it is important to keep a sense of perspective when setting the expectations for the Seattle franchise and what they might be able to achieve in their inaugural year. Of course, they haven’t even got a team name let alone a roster yet so it is impossible to judge what they may or may not be able to do on the ice, but it is feasible to suggest that they will take a different approach to the Golden Knights.
Ron Francis, who was named as the first General Manager in Seattle franchise history on Jul, 18, 2019, will no doubt be hard at work already in order to get a head start on the hefty to-do list he’ll have to battle through in order to construct an NHL franchise from the ground floor up.
We did a deep dive a while ago on the six lessons Seattle can learn from the Vegas Golden Knights, which you can read here, but Francis will likely want to create his own blueprint rather than emulate what has already been done and he’ll want to set his own course for his franchise.
And, as a result, the Seattle story in the NHL will be very different to the Vegas Golden Knights story. Why’s that? Well, for starters, they will likely tackle the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft in an entirely different fashion compared to how the Knights navigated the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft.
After Vegas were able to take advantage of how the Expansion Draft was set-up, then General Manager and now President of Hockey Operations George McPhee was able to assemble a roster full of hidden gems that meshed into a formidable collective unit that made a stunning run to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural year.
In the wake of that success for the Knights, it is fair to say that the other 30 General Managers in the NHL (Vegas will be exempt from the process) will be extremely wary when putting together their protected list ahead of the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. As a direct consequence of that, Francis will have to make sure that he and his Scouting Department cover every single angle when they do their homework for the Expansion Draft.
Also, after discovering the abundance of talent they had at their disposal, the Golden Knights front office decided that their Stanley Cup window was open right now and, as a result, went out and made a host of bold and aggressive moves by trading for the likes of Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty and then signing them to big extensions, in addition to dipping their toes into the free agency pool by handing center Paul Stastny a contract.
Of course, such moves landed the Knights in some salary cap discomfort this offseason but they manoeuvred themselves out of it pretty well and the long-term cap picture for the franchise isn’t as bad as some try to make out. Plus, if they can win a Stanley Cup within the next year or two, which I think is a real possibility, then all of that lavish spending will be more than justified.
I don’t think Seattle will head down that same path, however. Looking at Francis’ history as General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, he developed a relentless commitment to drafting and developing young talent as backed up by the fact that he drafted and then nurtured forward Sebastian Aho and defensemen Jacob Slavin and Brett Pesce, who were all key pieces in the Canes’ run to the Eastern Conference Final last year.
That isn’t to say that the Seattle franchise won’t invest in free agents and be aggressive in the trade market. They do of course boast the huge advantage of being in a state that has no income tax, so that alone should make them a hugely attractive destination for potential free agents. Francis did after all sign Justin Williams as a free agent and trade for forward Teuvo Teravainen while in Carolina, so he does have history in that department.
But it appears likely that Ron Francis will approach the mammoth mission ahead of him with a cautious hand and look to take the slow-build approach with the Seattle franchise. They will likely build through the draft, establish their brand both within Seattle and throughout the hockey world and not rush the process and risk long-term obstacles for short-term success.
They won’t be a carbon copy of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Knights are a unique story and need to be celebrated for what they have achieved as an expansion team. However, the Seattle franchise are also their own team and it isn’t fair to judge what they do and compare it to what Vegas did during their first year in the NHL. Seattle will write their own story and that is completely fine.