Kraken Will Add the Flyers’ Ghost to Their Army

Expansion draft day is coming soon, and the Flyers are closer to trying to making a final decision on who stays and who goes. Scouts and fans alike have tried to piece together what strategy the team will take.  The Karken’s recent hire of Dave Haksol as head coach may be the fly in the ointment that thwarts both pundits and fans.

JVR and Voracek have been discussed at length as expansion fodder.  Both have large contracts, and are on the wrong side of thirty.  Neither have contractually mandated protection. Ironically, the contracts that make them targets to expose also are what would give the Kraken pause in selecting them. Put another way, the next few years of these contracts are so unattractive that even a team with no allocated cap may not want them. With Hakstol involved, Voracek maybe the more attractive option, as he was an assistant captain under the Hakstol regime.

After fruitlessly counting Nolan Patrick for years, Patrick will finally deliver, as you can count on him getting exposed in the expansion draft. At the start of the season the thought of losing a good young player like Patrick was sickening. After another underwhelming season, one with a +/- of -30, I don’t think he will be missed.

You may recall that the normally “patient to a fault”  Hextall brought Patrick right to the NHL in his draft year, while Patrick was coming off an injury.  My guess is Hakstol was the driving force behind that decision, a decision that may have damaged Patrick’s long term future. Depending on how the rest of the draft shakes out, there is the possibility of a Patrick/Hakstol reunion. However given Patrick’s past performance, selecting him instead of JVR or Voracek leaves the Seattle front office open to criticism. Will Hakstol mistakenly count on Patrick again?  I kind of hope so.

Shayne Gostisbehere will be the Flyer of note exposed on defense, and the best possible selection for the Kraken. The first elephant in the room is the premise that Hakstol did not like Gostisbehere. I find that narrative without merit. His best seasons happened under Hakstol. It is true that he also had some stinker seasons with Hakstol, but under the Fletcher/Vigneault regime, he has nothing but “bad” seasons statistically.

If we are speaking about dislike, rather than looking for a complimentary partner for Gostisbehere, Fletcher signs Erik Gustafsson, a player whose game largely mimics Gostisbehere’s, but at a much lower skill and compete level.  t seems to me the plan was to ship out Gostidbehere for a piece and have Gustafsson as the replacement. I would argue this regime was much more bearish on him than Hakstol ever was.