Seattle Hires Trusted Hockey Man Ron Francis as GM



There are about two hundred trusted hockey men in the NHL and behold, another one has found a job with a NHL Franchise. Despite the fact the Hurricanes made the playoffs zero times while Ron Francis was GM  and possessing a record of 137-138-53 named him the first general manager of the upcoming Seattle NHL team. The question has often occurred to me, whether the Seattle NHL team was going to be a forward thinking organization which used a blend of evaluation techniques to put together the best hockey team - or if it was just going to be a 32nd set of jobs for the same hockey people. This hiring really seems like the latter.

“When he was general manager, the team was up for sale, so it wasn’t perfect conditions for someone who came in. But he then did it the hard way. He drafted, developed and stayed patient,” Leiweke said. “He learned the hardest lesson there is in sports — how to take less chips and compete with the other teams. He’s going to get an equal number of chips here. We’re going to compete. We’re going to be a cap team. We’re going to have great facilities and the resources.”

Draft Record
Maybe I am being to harsh? I mean Francis is the genius who drafted Erik Karlsson in the 4th round of the 2012 draft, right? Francis has really managed to draft a good team to weigh out the fact that his team pinched pennies and didn't support him. He chose  to take Haydn Fleury over William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers. As well as Noah Hanafin over Ivan Provorov, Zach Werenski, Timo Meier and Mikko Rantanen.

Trades
His trade record was pretty uninspired. The best trade which was Teuvo Teravainen and Bryan Bickell from a Chicago Blackhawks team in 2016.

I suppose I could look upon Ron Francis as a GM in terms of someone who sets the tone for the organization. He came into Seattle with the grand announcement that he was dealing with a blank canvas - which in terms of a proclamation is only slightly more interesting than talking about going to the net and working the corners. I don't mean to sound too negative but I expected Seattle to hire Mark Hunter or Mike Gillis.


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