Ramblings: Final 2021 Free Agent Salary Projections & Seattle Kraken Mocks (Jul 21)

The contract projections are further down the page, but in the meantime I'm going to go over my Seattle thoughts before all of this is outdated in less than a day. I made a prior run-through a couple months ago, but a few things have changed since then. My selection list (without any side deals taken into account) looks like this:

Updated SEA list.
Two things to note:
-Seattle doesn't need both Kahkonen and Vanacek, and Soucy is better than anyone else WSH has to offer, so I think that's the direction they go.
-Vegas took 14F, 13D, and 3G. I would be surprised to see Seattle deviate much from that. pic.twitter.com/OBQuwKES0K

— Alex MacLean (@alexdmaclean) July 19, 2021

Opening night roster sketch:

Zucker – Gourde – Bailey

Domi – Kerfoot – Appleton

Jarnkrok – Compher – Donato

Gadjovich – Blackwell – Gaudette

Merkley

Gostisbehere – Stetcher

Bean – Dunn

Soucy – Borgen

Clague

Driedger

Vanacek

The rest are in the minors, IR or flipped for picks: Phillips, Klefbom, Kulak, Lyubushkin, Larsson, Lauzon, Hanley, Daccord.

Some of the reasoning behind these picks may not even become clear for a few weeks until future players are traded and/or signed. In a weak Pacific division, this type of roster could make some noise.

While we wait, who thinks this video is real, and who thinks it’s a diversion? Count me among those convinced the pick is indeed going to be Kerfoot.

LETS FUCKINGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/aU04B2OXZV

— 🎱 (@Ieafsfan) July 20, 2021

*

I look at a lot of the other selection sets that people are making for the Kraken, and while I can appreciate that there are different opinions than mine on who the best picks are, there are some fundamental mistakes being made, and both of these mistakes have fantasy world lessons to be learned from them:

Lesson #1: Opportunity Cost

Carey Price is the best goalie exposed talent-wise, it's tough to argue against that. However, (injury aside