January 22, 2025 | 11:20am ET
TheFourthPeriod.com
KRAKEN TAKING CALLS ON MULTIPLE PLAYERS
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Brandon Tanev, forward
The Seattle Kraken despite winning their last two games, sit six points out of the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference and the reality of their season may be sinking in.
The Kraken currently post a 21-24-3 record through 48 games, three more than the Calgary Flames, who currently occupy the second wildcard seed and have 51 points.
Kraken GM Ron Francis has been generating interest in a number of his players, beyond pending unrestricted free agent forwards Yanni Gourde and Brandon Tanev.
During Tuesday evening’s edition of “The Latest” on TFP, David Pagnotta reported teams have either already expressed interest in other Kraken players or have some of their on their target list ahead of the March 7 trade deadline.
“Ron Francis is apparently open to a variety of different possibilities,” Pagnotta told host Kate Pettersen. “Now, they are having some conversations to understand if there’s an opportunity to sign Tanev and/or Gourde to extensions, but these are two guys that are highly coveted from a number of teams. Gourde has a $5 million cap it, Tanev has a $3.5 million cap it. They bring different elements to kind of stabilize a mid-six to bottom-six for a contending team, so they're going to generate a lot of interest. But they have other pieces too, with another year left on their contracts – Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jaden Schwartz and Jamie Oleksiak on the backend.
“It sounds like Seattle – talking to other people around the league – they’re at least open to having those discussions for guys that are not on an expiring deal right now. So that’ll be an interesting way of kind of navigating the trade market for some contenders that wouldn’t mind adding somebody now for a run, but also have them on the roster next season, as well. So, we’ll keep tabs on that one.”
Schwartz, 32, comes with a $5.5 million cap hit and owns a 16-team no-trade list as part of his contract.
Bjorkstrand, 29, has a $5.4 million cap hit and a 10-team no-trade list.
Oleksiak, 32, owns a $4.6 million cap hit and has a 16-team no-trade list.
The Kraken are not interested in simply giving their assets away, but Francis is believed to be open to the possibility of moving them for the right price as he begins to shift some of his focus to retooling his roster for the 2025-26 campaign.
Seattle also has all three of their salary retention slots available and could eat a portion of Gourde and/or Tanev’s contracts to push a move across the finish line if the club is incentivized to do so.