The Kraken after 30 games

[DavidGee24]

With another game being postponed tonight, time for a review of the season so far, which has been a complete disaster.

Golden Knights after 30 games: 19-11
Kraken after 30 games: 10-20

it's been said that we didn't have quite have all of the advantages that the Golden Knights had, but that's really no excuse for the roster Ron Francis put together. He passed on some pretty good players who weren't that expensive for AHL and fourth-line fodder. While Francis left a ton of space in the salary cap, not too many good free agent players are going to want to play for a bottom-six team that might end up being a bottom-three team once we start trading players for draft picks.

Francis could have put together a much better team and still had significant salary-cap left over to attract free agents, and he didn't. When the draft was announced, pretty much every social media post I read from hockey fans said that Francis blew it. When Dave Hakstol was announced as head coach, same thing from all the Flyer (Hakstol coached there three seasons) fans posting, that he was a bad hire.

It's not like putting a good team out there meant automatic regression either. Again, the Golden Knights in their four seasons:
51-31, Stanley Cup finals
43-39, lost first round on horseshit call in game 7 (NHL actually apologized for it)
39-32, made it to conference finals
19-11

It looked like we still could have had a winning record with Grubauer and Driedger in goal, but they've been unbelievably awful. If there's any defense of Francis, it's that if these two were playing for us like they did their previous teams (and accounting for better defense in front of them), that would be a few more wins.

The Golden Knights and Ducks are tied for first in the Pacific Division at 20-11 and 17-15 (six OT losses), respectively. The Oilers and Flames are tied for third at 18-11 and 15-13 (again, six OT losses), respectively. Put even a .500 team out there and just barely on the outside looking in, and that wasn't too much for us to expect.

Some say "Well, they're getting used to playing together". Yeah, so were the Golden Knights four years ago, and so are the other 31 teams in the NHL this year with their new additions. People never think of that for some reason.

On a side note, I wish Sexy still posted here. He knows more about the ins and outs of hockey than I do (yeah I know, hard to believe) and it made for interesting reading.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

And now Brandon Tanev is done for the season.

[DavidGee24]

And now Brandon Tanev is done for the season.

He's pretty much the only guy they have can overtake other guys on the ice. He was on pace for a career-high scoring season AND his plus-minus rating is plus-4, which on this team is really something. I love watching him play and it's a damn shame he got hurt.