Dobber's 15^th Annual Fantasy Prospects Report will be available sometime today! That's Saturday, depending on when you are reading this. Over 500 prospects are covered, which makes it a must-own for even the deepest of keeper leagues. Take my word: it helps me navigate through the prospects that I need to target in my dynasty league. Secure yours today by itself or as part of a Keeper League Pack or an Ultimate Pack over at Dobber Sports.

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Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Lightning on back-to-back Stanley Cup wins, and the Montreal Canadiens for their long playoff run. I'll talk about the Stanley Cup Final more tomorrow, particularly a few of the players involved. However, I have another topic that I've been sitting on for a few days that I'd like to share before any possible major deals force any changes here. 

I know Dobber decided to draft his own Seattle Kraken expansion team a short time ago. I couldn't let him have all the fun, so I decided to take a swing at it myself. Feel free to try it over at CapFriendly, although you'll want to give yourself plenty of time. Not only will you need to determine which players to protect, but you'll also need to select one unprotected player from each roster while meeting the positional requirements and the cap floor/ceiling requirements. You can save time in protecting players and select top choices among crowd-sourced popularity, but you may need to add a few more players. It is still a time-consuming process, though.

Expansion rules allow for either 7F/3D/1G or 8FD/1G. So by protecting an fourth defenseman, your team has to expose not one, not two, but three additional forwards. So essentially it is 4F/4D/1G. That's how valuable a quantity defensemen are.

Some general assumptions:

Most 2021 UFAs have not been protected, unless I believe they will re-sign with their team. Examples of this include Alex Ovechkin and Gabriel Landeskog. Many UFAs were top default choices among crowd-sourced popularity at CapFriendly anyway, so I made some changes there.

No one with a no-movement clause (NMC) agrees to waive it. I've mentioned an example of where this might happen later, though.  

No trades are made to protect certain players, and no other trades between different teams are made beforehand. The Kraken may make trades afterward – this is just the roster they draft. As you'll see, I drafted a solid defense but my forward attack is thin, so maybe I'll trade a defenseman or two for some more scoring help. What team isn't trying to improve its defense anyway?

I didn't spend to the cap – only just over $60 million. There are still nine RFAs to be signed, which should push the cap hit up to roughly $70 million. That's still under the cap.

Below is my roster, arranged in order of position then cap hit. You can view the full salary cap results, including the players I protected and exposed at Cap Friendly (press the Load Protected Players button at the bottom). Don't assume this will be the full Seattle roster. I'll be happy if more than one of these players ends up on the Kraken by the time they hit the ice for their first preseason game on September 26 against Vancouver in Spokane, WA.

FORWARDS: Jakub Voracek, Jason Zucker, Radek Faksa, Austin Watson, Josh Archibald, Pierre Engvall, Trent Frederic, Eric Robinson, Mason Appleton, Kevin Rooney, Jonathan Dahlen, Kieffer Bellows, Sam Steel, Kole Lind, Nick Merkley, David Kampf                     

DEFENSE: Ryan McDonagh, Mark Giordano, Samuel Girard, Colin Miller, Olli Maatta, Nick Jensen, Brett Kulak, Alexandre Carrier, Jake Bean, Christian Djoos, Vince Dunn

GOALIES: Cam Talbot, Chris Driedger, Adin Hill

On the defense, I built the team around experience. Tampa is probably one of the first teams Seattle looks at, since we know about the cap issues that they currently face. They'll either have to leave a top 4 defenseman unprotected, or to keep all four they'll need to expose forwards like Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde, and Alex Killorn. I don't know the actual probability, but I decided that they could expose the 32-year-old McDonagh to help with their cap situation, and Seattle bites. He and Giordano are potential first captain material for the Kraken. If you don't agree with me about McDonagh, at least Jannik Hansen does (Sportsnet 650).

I've also drafted Girard for the first-unit power play. However, if the Avalanche can convince Erik Johnson to waive his NMC, then Girard can be protected. I don't think Seattle would pick up Johnson and his $6 million cap hit, instead turning to someone like Ryan Graves if both Girard and Devon Toews are protected. In his mock draft, Dobber decided to leave Toews unprotected instead of Girard, so he recognized the same issue even though he received a fair bit of pushback for doing so. Whatever happens, the Avalanche will be giving up a solid NHLer here.   

Bean or Brady Skjei? Carolina is another team having protection issues because of depth. Bean has plenty of upside and could eventually take over the first-unit power play, especially if Dougie Hamilton signs elsewhere. However, if the Hurricanes want to win now, losing both Hamilton and Skjei would be a big blow to their defense corps. Just ask Winnipeg how much losing multiple top-4 defensemen can hurt the following season. For anyone about to push back that there's no way the Canes would leave Bean unprotected, Canes reporter Sara Civian from The Athletic also predicts this.

At the forward position, I mainly went for youth. I noticed a few prospects whose stock has dropped a little since being drafted (eg. Steel, Bellows, Dahlen) but still possess some upside. By investing in a few, Seattle could mine a gem here.

Zucker and Voracek were brought in for experience, as both the Flyers and Penguins stand to expose some potential top-6 forward talent. The two Keystone State rivals both possess enough forward depth that I left the likes of James van Riemsdyk and Brandon Tanev unprotected. If Seattle does not establish itself as a playoff team like Vegas did in its first season, these veteran forwards could be possible trade chips at the deadline. Note that teams will prefer to protect their top-6 centers, so finding a true first-line center will be difficult.

It would be ideal if the Kraken could find their own version of William Karlsson, a player that was largely overlooked until he was given the right opportunity. Again, don't discount the trade market for finding another forward if they can stockpile defensemen like Vegas did in the draft. Also remember that Vegas didn't blow you away with its forwards initially, but it found players that were motivated and formed instant chemistry.

Related to this: The Rangers signed Brett Howden to a one-year contract worth $885,000 on Friday. In case you're curious about the Rangers, I had elected to keep Julien Gauthier with their seventh and final forward spot. Howden, Gauthier, Rooney, and Colin Blackwell are all possibilities to be kept here after Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, Ryan Strome, Pavel Buchnevich, and Filip Chytil.

There will be lots of 1A/backup goalies to choose from. Minnesota could be ripe for the picking here, having to choose between the 34-year-old Talbot and potential goalie of the future Kaapo Kahkonen.  The experience of Talbot, the upside of Chris Driedger from brief runs as the starter, and the potential of Adin Hill should make this team decent in goal. Like on defense, they can trade one of their goalies for forward help. Yes, I made an exception to my earlier assumption: Driedger is a UFA, but I've heard rumblings that the Panthers are interested in him. So I'll assume they find some way to acquire him.

If you're looking for an update on Driedger, here's one from yesterday from Pierre LeBrun:

Hearing that teams are calling the Panthers on pending UFA G Chris Driedger, perhaps jump ahead of the UFA market by trading for his rights ahead of time. But there's also the Seattle factor to consider. Do the Kraken want him as part of expansion? Intriguing situation.

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) July 8, 2021

Overall, this was a fun experience. There are literally a million possibilities for how this draft will play out – this is just one. It gave me a chance to really dive deep into teams' depth issues. Without completing this exercise, it's easy to say "Team X will protect Player Y instead of Player Z", but there will be situations with deeper teams where a certain player will be left unprotected and probably wouldn't on other teams. This is where the side deal may come in, although teams may be more hesitant to make these deals after how it helped Vegas.

When the Seattle roster is finally created on July 21 (whoa, only a week and a half away), check back to Dobber Hockey. We'll provide our take on this roster and how things could play out fantasy-wise for various members of this brand-new squad.

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Finally, Nikita Kucherov turned his little post-game liquid courage rant into an endorsement deal. Did you like it, or not? As my father said, it was no Jean Beliveau interview. It was good for a few laughs, though. Don’t forget that the Bolts and Habs should be playing in the same division next season.

Official Announcement: Nikita Kucherov signs with Bud Light! #WeAreGoldStar!@budlight pic.twitter.com/kzCZou2g4u

— Dan Milstein-Hockey (@HockeyAgent1) July 9, 2021

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding