Modifié 3 juill. 2021 à 11 h 13
If you’re wondering right now why I would make this trade, here’s why:
1) The Kraken would take on the awful contract of James Neal for some veteran service and to get to (salary) cap floor (also don’t forget he has experience on an expansion team with Vegas in 2017-18, so this could help Seattle’s success).
2) The Kraken could acquire their future first line forward in Yamamoto, who is actually one of the few players in the NHL from Washington State, so I’m sure he’d love to play in his home state.
3) The Kraken get a first round pick in this trade for taking Neal’s contract, and when it comes to expansion teams, draft picks are extremely important to have so you can draft players and build your franchise around them. That’s pretty straight forward.
And Finally,
4) The Oilers get rid of Neal’s contract and can spend the extra cap space somewhere else. On top of that, in my opinion, Yamamoto did not meet expectations this past year, and if he stays on the Oilers for the next couple years and continues to play the way he does, he may not develop into the player he should be.
I also forgot to mention that the 3rd round pick from Seattle could also just be expansion considerations instead. I couldn’t figure out if expansion considerations were an option for Seattle to trade on Capfriendly. If anyone knows how or if you can trade expansion considerations, please comment below this post.