The clock is certainly ticking now. There are barely two weeks before the 2024 NHL Entry Draft at Sphere in Las Vegas. Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis and his crack team of analysts must be crunching the data and talking to people around the various leagues to figure out who they might select. We have already previewed both Round 1 and Round 2. Round 3 falls into the category of “anything goes.” This is where true blue, nerdy hockey knowledge comes into play. But we will do our best to fathom what this third session has in store for the Kraken.
Déjà Vu in Round 3
Lo and behold, Seattle finds itself in familiar territory when the third stage of the draft begins. In our Round 2-centric analysis, we explained that a trade deadline deal with the New York Rangers landed Francis’ organization with a second pick in the sophomore round, which will end up being the 63rd pick. The Kraken benefit from the same kind of options in Round 3. Not only have their 2023-24 performances earned them the 73rd spot, but the Mark Giordano trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2022 provides the club with the 88th pick too.
This puts Seattle in a relatively comfortable position. At this stage, they will have selected eighth overall, and then twice in Round 2 before even deciding what they want to do at 73 or 88. The brainstorming for this article is being done with the assumption that all three previous picks will have been used. In other words, by the time this phase commences, three new prospects will develop under the Kraken’s tentacles, be it at the NHL level or otherwise.
Using a Pick as Trade Bait
There is a term used in sports parlance for situations such as this one. With five potential selections in three rounds, one can argue that the Kraken have draft capital. When a club has draft capital, it can use it to leverage deals with rivals by trading away a pick to acquire a tried, tested, and true player.
Related: 2024 NHL Draft Rankings: Baracchini’s Top 128 Final Rankings
Although the purpose of the draft is to plan for the future by choosing and developing young talent, when one has five picks in three rounds, one starts to entertain the notion of making a deal with somebody else. Seattle can’t advertise a third-round pick in exchange for a Pavel Zacha, Nick Suzuki, or Quinn Hughes. Those players are far too valuable to their respective sides. But when one examines a team’s pecking order and goes down the list of points getters, some possibilities begin to emerge. A current third-round pick with another player – or perhaps even without one – could yield a young, relatively inexperienced player who is in the middle of the pack of their team’s stats sheet.
Looking around the NHL, there is no shortage of pros who have just begun to make a name for themselves but have not hit it big. Even in their first seasons, they did not experience that much top-flight action.
One name that pops up is Morgan Frost of the Philadelphia Flyers. Only 25, he’s played well the past two seasons, tallying 46 and 41 points, respectively, and missing only 12 total games during both campaigns. This came after playing a grand total of 77 matches in his first three NHL seasons after getting drafted in 2017.
Joe Veleno of the Detroit Red Wings comes to mind. At 24, he has plenty of great hockey years ahead of him. Granted, he was a first-round pick in 2018 but came in at the back end (30th). What’s more, he looks like a player whose full potential remains untapped. He’s partaken in 66, 81, and 80 contests in each of the past three seasons, logging about 13 minutes of ice time. His highest point total was 28, which came during the present campaign. Not all Round 1 picks develop into phenomenal players, but whatever might be unlocked in Veleno hasn’t happened in five total campaigns, including three spent predominantly in the NHL.
While some might scoff at the thought of going after a relatively recent first-round selection, rumour has it that Francis has had to decline offers for 2022 Round 1 pick Shane Wright in recent weeks, so it’s not as far-fetched as some might believe.
Notice that we haven’t said if the trade should be with the 73rd or 88th pick as bait. Honestly, it could be either. Other teams’ needs would influence what the Kraken might choose to do.
Who is Available in Round 3?
Looking at The Hockey Writers’ latest prospect ranking for June, a lot of defensemen are placed around the 73rd spot. LD Lukas Fischer of the Sarnia Sting comes in at 70, RD Luka Marelli of the Oshawa Generals is 71, LD Daniil Ustinkov of the ZSC Lions is 72, F Will Zellers of the Shattuck St. Mary’s 18U Prep is 73, and LD Tomas Galvas of Bílí Tygři Liberec is 74.
Interestingly, goalkeeper Ilya Nabokov ranks 75. Seattle’s situation in net seems sound enough, but who knows if Joey Daccord, for all his resplendent stats in 2023-24, is a long-term solution. Philipp Grubauer’s save percentage has dropped to under .900 in three consecutive seasons (.889, .895, and .899). What’s more, Russian keepers are all the rage these days, and why wouldn’t they be? Igor Shesterkin, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Ilya Sorokin are elite, so the Russians are doing something right in developing their goalies. Choosing one might not be the worst idea.
As for the other players, by now, Seattle will probably have done as much as it can to alleviate its scoring woes, so selecting a defender would be sensible.
As mentioned, the Kraken go again at the 88th spot. The Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) is well-presented, with both RD Tomas Lavoie of the Cape Breton Eagles at 86 and C Raoul Boilard Baie-Comeau Drakkar at 88 potentially available.
If Seattle still owns the 88th pick, Boilard seems like a good fit. Creating scoring opportunities was a frustrating experience for the club in 2023-24, but our analysts appreciate his patience and passing in the offensive zone. He is also an excellent faceoff man, which would greatly help the Kraken’s 25th-ranked performance in that department of 47.5 percent.
With so many options and so much activity done by the Kraken before the third round even begins, the possibilities start to feel endless. Will Seattle trade away one of their two picks? Will they trade both or even none? We are deep into analyzing and predicting the club’s draft choices, which leads to entertaining the idea of making a trade or even selecting a netminder. One of the interesting elements of a round like the third, which isn’t early but isn’t late either, is it encourages writers – and surely the teams themselves – to start thinking about potential backup plans and not simply what the most pressing needs are. As to what the Kraken will do, we’ll find out on June 28 and 29.
