In part 2 of our week-long examination of the Seattle Kraken, a discussion about general manager Ron Francis. Around the Davy Jones’ Locker Room roundtable are site contributors Zaiem Beg, Sky On Air, Emily Rupp, Allyson Ballard, and Glenn Dreyfuss.
Sky: He has a very good idea of what the future of the NHL should look like, and he will find guys to fill that role. Now, generally speaking, that means that he will find depth where other teams will either cast that away or don’t quite see the value.
Allyson: This team has had a lot of success in developing players that may have not gotten chances that they have needed to succeed at whatever level that they’re playing at, which is a benefit.
Em: Like with Kaapo Kakko, he’s here in Seattle now because he’s a second overall pick, but the New York Rangers were horrible for his development.
Allyson: Kakko’s had so much success here. I think he’s been great, especially in what he’s giving Matty Beniers to work off of, who has had a tough season and is just kind of now getting back to his game.
Sky: I think that because of how process-oriented Ron Francis is, it means that those sudden pivots that you will have to do to still stay on track but also adjust accordingly to what’s going on around you, especially in a competitive division, he does still struggle with that.
One of the big things that Ron Francis’ teams don’t do very well is adjust on the fly. They will try to improve wherever they can, but they will not do it drastically. If you have a playoff season that is immediately followed up with a season where you couldn’t hit the net if there was nobody else on the ice, you’re going to have to do a little more than just draw the waiver wire or just make basic sell-offs. You’re going to have to improve through not just your drafting but also through acquisition.
Em: Ron Francis has this very patient approach, has this idea that we are going to build a team from the ground up. We’re going to bring up people from Coachella Valley. These are going to become the people that form the foundation of the team.
The draft is just so unpredictable. That’s my concern. It can sometimes backfire. The prospects you think at the time are going to pan out and be amazing, you can end up finding out that your first-rounders really aren’t cutting it in the way that you thought.
Allyson: The word that I’ve always thought of in regards to his strategy is “conservative.” He’s very hesitant to make big moves. The one time that he has, last of-season with Chandler Stevenson and Brandon Montour and Matty Beniers, they seemed risky and I would even say ill-planned.
Like Sky was saying, if you can’t make adjustments on the fly, you’re going to fail. What sticks out to me about this season is that they come into this year with a new head coach, new players, they’re bulked up, and they’re still having issues. And the only moves that Ron Francis makes are a periodical callup from Coachella Valley.
This season has really been about revealing the roster construction issues that they’ve had. While Kakko did work out, and I think he’s earned praise when it comes to that move, there just isn’t a willingness, or there isn’t space or room or flexibility to make maybe the more impactful moves on the fly that they would need to put some life into the team.
If you’re not giving yourself enough room to be flexible or you’re not willing to make riskier decisions knowing that it could pay off in a long run, then that may say something about the place that you’ve put yourself in now, you know, almost four whole seasons in.
Zaiem: Here’s my optimistic viewpoint. About half the roster’s gonna get turned over in the next two years. You’ll have like 10 new regulars. You have this deep prospect pool, and you got Matty and Shane and Kaapo.
Now, Ron Francis learns how to build on the fly for the first time in his career. And voila, you now have the core. This roster and this plan is almost in great shape were it not for these two contracts. But as the salary cap goes up, then the problem of those two contracts gets mitigated somewhat. And then everything else around that, which is building through prospect pool, is still on track.
Will he get a fifth year? And would you give him a fifth year?
Sky: Just to see what he would do with an expanding cap, I would be interested to give him a half year to prove that his vision and his plan works. I want at least a few months to see if you can actively fix the problems. But if this off season doesn’t go well, and if the draft doesn’t go nearly as well as it has, then I’d be willing to start looking into other avenues.
He’s probably running out of room just because of how quick the NHL can change. There isn’t really a whole lot of buffer between success and being fired. If he can figure out a way to better address the issues the Kraken have had over the past couple of years, he better do it because it’s going to take more than a bunch of graduations from Coachella or a bunch of graduations from junior to fix the what ails this team.
Allyson: I would not give him another season and I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think that rumored return of the Sonics is too much pressure. They have to be winning soon if they want to stay relevant in the greater sports market here in Seattle.
There may be a world where Ron Francis’ conservative, more patient style would pay off with certain teams. It’s not paying off right now.
Zaiem: I probably have been the biggest Ron Francis apologist over the first three or four years. His value-oriented approach made complete sense to me. He is no longer the best choice for this franchise.
The analogy that I think of is a multi-day poker tournament. If you want to win the whole thing, early on it’s incredibly important be patient, to not take big risks, to take value when you see it, but don’t do anything too crazy. Later, you have to start taking those chips you accumulated by being patient and start using them aggressively and wielding them to start leveraging in risky ways because you’re trying to win all the chips.
There are a lot of players who are good at one stage and not the other. I think Ron Francis is really good at the first 10 stages of a poker tournament. I think he has now accumulated the assets. But now when it comes to the second piece, I don’t think he’s the right person for that. I don’t think that’s his skill set or his personality.
The Kraken coaching staff will be the topic in part 3 of the DJLR roundtable on Wednesday.