SoundCheck - A Seattle Hockey Blog

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 o...

I was at a kings game and I saw the Kings St Patricks Day Jersey. It has plaid on it and it doesn't look terrible! Everyone is going to be making jokes about how Seattle is associated with grunge. They might as well lean into it and have at least a third jersey which incorporates plaid! Also they should do a throwback night to the barber poll striped jersey!! Make this happen! 

After much fanfare including reportedly selling over 10,000 season tickets in under 12 minutes the NHL in Seattle will commence in the 2020-2021 season. A bit of history: when the Seattle Metropolitans formed in 1915 Frank and Lester Patrick stocked the team by offering salaries to players from the Toronto Blueshirts. They signed Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, Jack Walker, Eddie Carpenter, and Cully Wilson. They won the Stanley Cup two years later in 1917. There is always the constant threat that a team might go the route of offering sheeting RFA stars. To this end  players like Elias Pettersson, Andrei Scechnikov, Filip Zadina, Rasmus Dahlin, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi are available to be offer sheeted. However offer sheeting comes at a high price - especially for an expansion team just starting off. This leads to looking at which unrestricted free agents are available. Here is a list of some unrestricted free agents available for the 2021/22 season. Alex Ovechkin Kevin Sh...

An important aspect to look at when trying to predict the future of the inevitable Seattle NHL team is the CEO of Oakview group Tim Leiweke. He is the former president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) and former President and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). He was the President of MLSE during 2013-2014. During this time the Toronto Maple Leafs were : 38–36–8, 84 Points. They didn't make the playoffs and their most notable trade was for Dave Bolland. The general manager of the team was Dave Nonis. In this article about Leiweke it says he went to Toronto because he wanted to build something. He renovated BMO Field, and got approval to build a new Raptors training facility nearby. With Oak View, Leiweke has partnered with Madison Square Garden and New York Knicks owner James Dolan and talent manager Irving Azoff. MLSE is still a client. His biggest accompplishment in Toronto was appointing Brendan Shanahan. Shannaghan has taken the l...