Can Francis, Seattle hit expansion draft jackpot?

Part 2 of a two-part series:

Ron Francis' respect and affection for Jim Rutherford are obvious.

And understandable.

After all, Rutherford is the GM who lured Francis to Carolina as a free agent in 1998, after Francis had spent seven-plus seasons with the Penguins, and later brought him into the Hurricanes' front office, where he served in a variety of roles.

It was there that Francis honed the skills that ultimately allowed him to succeed Rutherford in Raleigh and, now, to oversee operations of the NHL expansion club in Seattle that will begin play in 2021-22.

"It was great that he gave me the opportunity to wear a lot of hats," Francis said. "I started in player development. He had me as assistant GM. I was down on the bench as associate head coach. I was back upstairs as assistant GM. Then ultimately, when he felt it was time to move aside and let me take over, he did that. Shortly after that, he moved over to Pittsburgh.

"I kind of missed the fact that I would have had him around for that guidance and leadership and experience as I worked in my first (GM) job. But I certainly appreciated the fact that he had me in on a lot of discussions, asked my opinion. You go through those processes and understand the pressure and what you're trying to accomplish and why deals may come together or may not happen. Certainly, a lot of experience that I gained (came) from being with him, in addition to having a great friendship with him on the side."

Of course, they are now competitors, as well as colleagues, which figures to affect at least some aspects of their relationship.

And because one of Francis' primary duties over the next year will be preparing for the expansion draft that will stock his still-unnamed team's depth chart, his performance will be measured against that of George McPhee, GM in Vegas when it entered the league.

McPhee did a masterful job of not only constructing a major-league roster, but of convincing established teams to surrender assets in return for the Golden Knights not claiming a specific player who had been exposed in that expansion draft.

Exhibit A: The Penguins, who were particularly concerned about losing forward Bryan Rust, sent a second-round draft choice to Vegas in return for a promise that it would take Marc-Andre Fleury, who immediately became the face of the franchise there.



There's reason to believe that most clubs, including the Penguins, will be reluctant to negotiate such deals this time around, although Francis believes some might be interested in doing so.

"It's going to be interesting to see what the landscape looks like and what, if anything, teams want to do differently this time," he said. "At the end of the day, if you have a solid team and you think you have a chance of winning, I would think it still makes sense to give up something to keep your team intact, so we'll see how things play out as we move a little closer to that point.”

Regardless, Francis appreciates how the remarkable success Vegas had from its earliest days in the league -- the Golden Knights reached the Stanley Cup final in their first season -- ratcheted up expectations for the club he will assemble in Seattle.

"I used to joke that you want to be the second GM in Seattle, not the first, based on what Vegas did," he said. "It'll be an interesting process. It's a little bit different. Prior to Vegas' expansion, the one before that had been in 2000, so it was 17 years. A lot of GMs hadn't gone through that.

"I don't think Vegas had as long a runway to prepare as we have, but I don't think other teams had as long a runway to prepare, either, to protect players. George and Kelly (McCrimmon, his assistant) did an excellent job in taking advantage of that and making some good deals and building a solid team."

Although Seattle still has to flesh out its scouting operation, Francis said that he began preparing for the expansion draft when the 2019-20 season got underway.

"We certainly got it jump-started this year," he said. "We had probably a smaller staff -- a skeleton staff, per se -- but we thought it was quite productive. A lot of different player reports began (to be compiled) and added to our player database. People forget that we're starting from nothing.

"We have to actually build the whole scouting system and start collecting data. We've started building and adding to that, as far as NHL, AHL, NCAA, (major-junior hockey), tournaments all around the place. We've also gotten a significant portion of our analytical staff in place, too.

"We hired more or less a handful of people to do pro scouting for us, being cognizant of the fact that we were two years out and mindful of budget ... they were basically located in NHL cities, so they covered home games for teams and had specific divisions and conference to focus on.

"We had other people who were kind of spread around, just giving us feedback on AHL and amateur stuff, then both (assistant GM) Ricky Olczyk and myself doing a significant amount of traveling and scouting in a lot of different areas, as well."

Precisely which players will be available to Seattle next year won't be known for quite a while; few, if any, clubs likely have settled on precisely which guys they will protect because performance and personnel moves between now and when their protected list will have to be submitted will influence those decisions.

Francis does, however, know the kind of team that he hopes to construct, and the one he helped to assemble in Carolina provides a template.

"That's the kind of team I like," he said. "They're fast and the defense is big and solid and can move the puck. The perfect player is hard to find -- there aren't a lot of them -- but that guy has great hockey sense and skills set and compete and skating.

"To find a guy who has all of those things, there aren't a lot of them, so it's a matter of putting the pieces together and putting a team on the ice that can compete each and every night."

Which sounds a lot like the one his longtime friend and mentor has helped to build with the Penguins.

Part 1: Penguins' influence on Francis