May 30, 2024 • 16 mins
Full interview with Kraken general manager Ron Francis, as aired on Sports Radio 93.3 KJR-FM with Ian Furness and Mike Benton on the day of new head coach Dan Bylsma's news conference at Kraken Community Iceplex on May 28.
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(00:00):
Joining us right now. Ron Francisthe general manager. I'll just settle crack
and the infronescing. Mike Bnton withyou as well today. Thank you,
sir for coming up here. Howare you? I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me. Process.It's over. It's finally done.
How was it? Well, it'sover. Now I got to find a
coach for Coachello's find much other.Process is over. Yeah, I know
it's you know, it's always aninteresting process. There's a lot of good
(00:20):
coaches out there, a lot ofpeople I talked to I have a lot
of respect for. And you know, it's never an easy process to go
through that, and and you know, it's always good for the one guy
that gets the job. It's alwaystough for the people that don't get it.
But I appreciated all the people whospent time with us and showed interest
in the in the job and tookthe time to interview and talked to us,
and ultimately we made the decision.We fell. Dan was the right
(00:42):
guy for us. I know you'llget me all the names you talk to
and all the interviews you talked toas well. Was Dan the front runner
from the start? Was he theguy that you had an eye on from
the start, because it seemed likean obvious fit of guy that's won a
Stanley Cup as a head coach,that had gone back kind of reinvented himself
in the American Hockey League and andwas coaching your American Hockey League affiliate a
great success. It felt like hewas the obvious choice. But was he
(01:04):
the front runner? Were there anotherfour or five guys that he really did
feel strongly about. Yeah, no, I think you can't go into the
process sort of with your eyes closed. And we went in looking at We
looked at a lot of names.Some we had interview in the past,
you know, we didn't want tointerview again. Some we just said,
wasn't the right fit for us forwhere we are and what our team is
trying to accomplish. And then youkind of get to your list and we
(01:26):
went through. I'm not one thatlikes to waste people's time, So if
I'm if I'm interviewing, it's becauseI think you have a legitimate shot of
being the head coach. And weinterviewed a handful of guys in that regard,
and as I said, I gota lot of respect for those guys,
they're they're they're all good coaches,and you know, just when we
went through the process, Dan wasthe one that we felt made the most
(01:49):
sense for us based on what he'sdone in the past, winning a Cup
in Pittsburgh and Coach of the Yearand coaching Olympic team and then kind of
reinventing himself and down in Withchella havingsuccess last year with one of the you
know, I think we're the thirdoldest team last year, got to the
stands at the call of the Cupfinals, unfortunately, losing four games,
all by one goal and the threeof them in overtime, including the game
(02:10):
seven crushing loss, and then doingit again this year with a much younger
team. You know, he's stillwant of the four teams that's in the
finals again. So that's exciting beable to do that and see that,
saw how his teams played, howhe builds relationships with his players, and
I thought that was a key factorin choosing him to be the guy to
lead the krack in here next year. And beyond Ron you mentioned that the
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building relationships part. What kind ofvoice is needed to get this team back
into a place where their back endof the playoffs and how can Dan best
use that voice? Yeah, Imean it's interesting. If we talked last
summer, I probably would have said, Okay, our offense is great,
we need to fix our defense,and yet our defense finished in the top
ten goals against, with the onlyplayoff team, our non playoff team to
(02:57):
finish in the top ten. Butyet our offense went from out for in
the league the bottom four in theleague. And you know, you're trying
to figure out why that is.So, you know, as I said,
and then it kind of talked alittle bit about in his part of
the press conference is understanding getting theplayers to understand exactly what their role is
as part of the team and whythat role is important, and also getting
(03:17):
to understand why we're playing a certainway as a team and getting to buy
in and play that way. Sowe feel we get some tweaks to do,
certainly in the neutra zone in theoffense zone, to increase hopefully our
offense and get it back to wherewe think it can be, and if
we do that, we think we'llhave more success. Where do you feel
the tweaks are more necessary? Moretransition game, more net front presence,
(03:38):
elsewhere. Maybe, Well, youwatch a lot of our games. I'm
sure if I asked you, youwould say that two years ago we looked
a lot faster than we did lastyear, and I think a lot of
that came in our neutra zone.We seem to go D to D a
lot more than we did north south, and I think when you start doing
that, then you're forwards maybe aren'treloading as quick as they need to.
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And then also in the offense zone, you're not getting in with that with
control of the puck or with speedand pressure on the forward check, and
I think that leads to less offensiveopportunities. So there's some things we need
to tweak and kind of how westructure the offensive zone, and we'll have
those conversations moving forward. But youknow, I like to play fast.
I like to see us play fast, and hopefully we can get back to
looking that way in the ice theway we did two years ago. Cracking
(04:21):
GM Ron Francis for this INFNESCE.Mike been at thirty two Bar and Grill
and you're home for the Cracking ninethree point three k r FM. What
you just said, they're kind ofI think every fan's like, Okay,
good, like like you want toplay fast, you want to go north
south. That's I mean, lookat your numbers from when you were playing.
I mean, I'm sure that's thestyle you want. Was never fast.
Just for the record, I wasnever fast. Offensively, you were
(04:41):
good, okay, but you topsix sky with Lemiu and Yaga right here.
I think that I think you aresomething saying something. All you have
to do is get there. Ijust had to get there, you know.
But there's in this in the NHLwe're watching now, there's so much
of this trapping and you know,it was there for a long time,
the whole left wing lock thing,and then it went away and then it
was back, you know. Forfor this franchise, it feels like new
(05:05):
new team or a new new market. You want to see a little more
up Temple, right, You've gotto still entertain when you when Samantha Hallway,
you guys are talking, how muchof her conversation with Hey, we
got to get people excited again.We got to find a guy that's going
to get people excited not just aboutyou know, his personality, but on
the ice, like play an excitingbrand of hockey. How much was this
almost in some ways a business decision, Well, I think that's it certainly
(05:27):
factors into your decision. You lookat all the different angles and and I
think Dan with his personality, sautein the press conference and his you know,
ability to connect with the players,they will also have that same ability
to connect with I think our fansand in the community. So I think
that's an important part as we tryand build this thing and continue to grow
in the right way to ultimately becominga championship franchise. So, uh,
(05:48):
that certainly factors in. But youknow, I think also on the ice
is a big part of it.That's what the fans come and see,
and you know, head coach isa big part of that. We've got
some time here, we've got somecaps pace, so hopefully we can do
some things over the next couple ofmonths, whether it's signing free agents,
whether it's making some trades. Someofar what we did between year and one
and year two. No guarantee thathappens, but we're certainly looking at that,
(06:11):
and we have the money and thebacking of the ownership to go ahead
and try and do that. Sothat's things we'll look at to help make
our team even better in that regardas well. Run this league turns over
coaches at a faster rate than anyother of the professional sports leagues, the
major leagues, in fact, anyof them. And I look at it
almost like from it as a goodthing, like there is no complacency,
There is no like we're going tosit back and wait, you know what
(06:33):
you have in an organization. Withthat said, you did make a move
with a coach you got to thefinal, it got to the second round
last year, was a Coach ofthe Year candidate as well. But you
made that move. And I heardthe question asked today about you know,
the salary cap and invested in winningwith Samantha, You're a salary cap team,
you go up against it. There'sobviously an investment to win, but
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how much of an urgency is thereto win as well? Immediately here from
ownership to you and to the hockeyops side, especially with you know year
four coming up, maybe the NBAcoming down the road, a challenge for
the consumer dollar in this market,But how much is there a sense of
urgency to win? And how doyou balance that with the fact you've got
some young guys coming up? TheShane right the winter it ins and all
those guys. Yeah, No,I think there's always an urgency to win.
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I mean, you know, eachand every year you go into the
season, you want to make theplayoffs. We've seen once you get into
the playoffs, anything can happen.So that is our goal in each and
every year, So there's an urgencyin that regard. I think there's an
urgency as well too. Mayor fanshave been great and we want to kind
of get them excited like we hadtwo years ago. You know, if
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we did the first season, thenthe third season second, and the second
season third, we'd all be ina different spot today. But unfortunately we
chose to do it backwards the yeartwo and three. But you know,
I think that's you saw the passionwe had in our fan base. She
saw the excitement we had not onlyin the arena but in the community,
and that's what we're ultimately striving todo, and that's how you build a
(07:58):
successful franchise. So we need toget back to having that success on the
ice, and I think that translatesto having that success ultimately in our fan
base and in the community. Sothat's what we want to do. Ron
I loved hearing about you interviewed DanBilsma back in your Carolina days. Players
change, people change, of course, coaches can change. How is Dan
Bilsma different now versus say, tenyears ago? Yeah, you know,
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and I think Dan and I've hadthis conversation, so I don't feel like
I'm talking out of turn here.But you know, Dan came in,
want to Stanley Cup one Coach ofthe Year, ended up getting let go
by Pittsburgh. But I still thinkas a coach, you're feeling pretty good
about sself. That's not a badfirst four years as a coach in the
NHL. And now he's looking forthe next job, and I think,
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you know, maybe some of itwas he felt and you have to feel
confident in yourself, but he feltvery confident in his abilities as a coach,
and I think he felt no matterwhere he went, he was going
to be able to kind of fixthe team he going to and go there.
We were kind of at a rebuildstage and trying to build our program
(09:07):
up in Carolina. You know,we were not at the place where we
could spend money like other teams.And I think as a coacher looking at
that thinking, you know, isthat really where I want to go.
I want to go someplace else,And you know he chose Buffalo at that
point versus US. It didn't goas great from in Buffalo, and then
ultimately was an assistant coach and thenI think, you know, this game,
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whether you're a coach, whether you'rea player, it's humbling, right.
You know, I played twenty threeyears. I've had stretches where i
didn't think I'd ever score another goal, and I'm thinking, you know,
what's wrong with me? And andit teaches you to sort of reassess and
look in the mirror times and Ithink you know, Dan went through that
process. The game humbled him alittle bit in that and then he went
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back and said, Okay, whatdo I need to do different if I'm
going to get back into this Andnot an easy job to step in and
do one year in Charlotte as anassistant coach, not a head coach,
as an assistant because it was Florida'saffiliate and you're kind of just part of
that staff, and then getting thejob in CV transitioning. We started here
for the first month, we werein Coachella starting November first, but we
(10:13):
didn't play our first home game tillDecember eighteenth, So again, not an
easy step for a guy that buthe showed that humility and the willingness to
go back and work at it,and I think that that's really served him
well and is tweaked. As hetalked about in the press conference, building
relationship with players and that different approachthat he didn't have maybe in the past,
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having now, I think has servedhim well, and I think that'll
serve us well bringing him into organizationwith our group that we have here in
Seattle. So how different is themodern athlete now than say the athlete that
played this game ten fifteen years ago. Totally different. You know, I
started in the NHL in eighty one. I'm a dinosaur compared to the guys
today. You know what they donow in the offseason. You know,
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they all have a personal trainer,they have a person nutrition is, they
have a personal psych person sometimes.I mean, they have all these tools.
Back in the day, I wentto the gym on my own and
I trained myself. Back in theday, I was told what to do
and I didn't question it, rightthat this is what you're gonna do,
this is how we're gonna play andyou didn't question went out there and did
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it, and if you didn't doit, you're sent down to the minors
or worse. I think one GMsaid, I'll send you so far the
Hockey News can't find you not tobe one of my teammates. But so,
you know, I think in today'sgame, you know, when you
tell somebody, it's not just okay, that's great. They want to know
why, right, why are youasking me to do this? And you
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have to be able to explain tothem, like in your game, if
you do this, this will helpyou, and these are the reasons why
as a team. You know,if we do this as a team,
this is why we think we'll havesuccess. And so it's it's much more
in that way building relationships and communicatingwith players than it was in my era.
And you know, the coach camein, gave a speech in my
(12:01):
day and was gone. And nowit's you know, coach getting out,
having coffee, having breakfast with theplayers, learning about them, talking,
building those relationships. Explaining the detailsof not only what you want, but
why you want it and how itbenefits the player and the team. I
think is critical and it's so differentthan my air. Wrap it up at
disc with Ron Francis and let yougo. I'm assuming you guys are heading
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down to the desert right to gowatch a little HL action. Dan and
his wife will be flying back tonight. I'm a scheduled to fly down there
tomorrow afternoon. Yeah, for gamesone and two on Wednesday and Friday.
Do you look outside? You don'twant to go down there right now?
You sure? I got some thingsto do tomorrow morning before that fight.
You might be busy, and letme just wrap it up this Ron.
If you touched it on a littlebit with Mike, and you've got some
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things coming up. You've got thedraft on June twenty eighth starting then,
you got a lot of you havea lot of draft picks. There is
some salary cap rooms, some decisionsto be made. How different do you
expect this team to look in thefall and what would you tell fans about
what your expectations for you and theorganization are heading into next season. Yeah.
We just finished pro meetings two weeksago where we go through all the
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different teams and the free agents.As we've had those meetines. We just
finished last week. All our amateurmeetings, we go through the draft.
As you mentioned, we've got ninepicks again this year, so in three
drafts. Usually at seventy year weshould have twenty eight picks. I believe
at the end of this draft wewill have forty two or forty three prospects
in our pipeline, which is accumulationof the draft picks we've had over time
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and a lot of really you know, promising young picks in the pipeline.
So that is exciting, but that'sdown the road. You know. Our
goal right now with the big clubis to do similar what we did the
first year, look at each andevery avenue possible to make our team better.
I can't sit here and promise thatthe free agents are going to want
to sign here. You know,they might get more money someplace else,
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or they might have a friendship witha team on a different player. But
we're certainly going to be in thefragian market. We're going to be certainly
trying to improve our prayer, ourteam through free agents. See, we'll
also explore possible trades that includes,you know, doing things within our lineup
using draft picks. Whatever we have. We do have that draft capital,
we do have prospects, So there'sa lot of tools we can use that
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we feel to to try and improveour peam. And that's our goal between
now and when we start in October. Ultimately, you know, our goal
is to get back in the playoffsand be successful again. So that's our
goal next season. Hopefully our playersare ready to go with the lineup we
bring into training camp and we canget off to a good start and accomplish
that goal next season. Because that'sthat's why we're here. Why would you
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not want to look at this place? Why would you not want to come
here as a free agent? Imean, like seriously, like like you
know, Carolina, I mean Iknow, like there are are relationships and
there's money. Weird, sometimes moneydoes talk. I get that, and
you can only spend for people whodon't know. I want to mention this
again because we hurt in the pressconference. This is a salary cap league.
So when you hear people say,well are they going to spend the
money that question was asked, I'mlike, wait a minute, they spend
money. Look at this organization.You guys you don't want here, do
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you? Like? I don't thinkyou go for one? No, our
ownerships of given the gre light rightfrom day one. They've never questioned anything
that I want to go and signa player or trade for a player.
They're all in. So the moneyaspect, that is not an issue,
the cap issue. But you know, you go out and you're looking at
for agents and there might be oneplayer at a certain position and five teams
looking at him and somebody's looking togive them more money. That doesn't work
(15:18):
against your cap, or it doesn'twork in your situation moving forward. So
there's things that factor into those decisions. Maybe the guy wh's an East Coast
guy doesn't want to come to WestCoast. Maybe he's got family on the
East Coast. Maybe he's got arelationship and he wants to go to a
certain market and stuff. There's alot of things that factor into Fragans as
far as wanting to come. Nothingwrong with our city. Our city is
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fantastic, our ownership group is outstanding. Our facilities are top notch, both
at CPA and the practice facility.Our players get treated as good, if
not better than any other team inthe league. So from that standpoint,
yeah, there's a lot of freegentsthat want to come play in Seattle.
We're just hoping we can get theones that we want, whether it's via
trade or freegency, and improve ourteam. I'll let you go. I
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appreciate your time. Michael give youhis list of top twenty five old Google
now Ron Francis workout plan by Yeah, but he's got a list of free
agents he'll pass along with you aswell. So I'm assuming draft picks too.
Oh yeah, everyone that plays fairnothing everyone there enough. Everyone that
played for the Silver Tips. That'suh, they played for the Tips.
That's who Mikey wants you to draft. Well, thank you so much.
I appreciate you coming. Bye,thank you. Thanks Rod,
Joining us right now. Ron Francisthe general manager. I'll just settle crack
and the infronescing. Mike Bnton withyou as well today. Thank you,
sir for coming up here. Howare you? I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me. Process.It's over. It's finally done.
How was it? Well, it'sover. Now I got to find a
coach for Coachello's find much other.Process is over. Yeah, I know
it's you know, it's always aninteresting process. There's a lot of good
(00:20):
coaches out there, a lot ofpeople I talked to I have a lot
of respect for. And you know, it's never an easy process to go
through that, and and you know, it's always good for the one guy
that gets the job. It's alwaystough for the people that don't get it.
But I appreciated all the people whospent time with us and showed interest
in the in the job and tookthe time to interview and talked to us,
and ultimately we made the decision.We fell. Dan was the right
(00:42):
guy for us. I know you'llget me all the names you talk to
and all the interviews you talked toas well. Was Dan the front runner
from the start? Was he theguy that you had an eye on from
the start, because it seemed likean obvious fit of guy that's won a
Stanley Cup as a head coach,that had gone back kind of reinvented himself
in the American Hockey League and andwas coaching your American Hockey League affiliate a
great success. It felt like hewas the obvious choice. But was he
(01:04):
the front runner? Were there anotherfour or five guys that he really did
feel strongly about. Yeah, no, I think you can't go into the
process sort of with your eyes closed. And we went in looking at We
looked at a lot of names.Some we had interview in the past,
you know, we didn't want tointerview again. Some we just said,
wasn't the right fit for us forwhere we are and what our team is
trying to accomplish. And then youkind of get to your list and we
(01:26):
went through. I'm not one thatlikes to waste people's time, So if
I'm if I'm interviewing, it's becauseI think you have a legitimate shot of
being the head coach. And weinterviewed a handful of guys in that regard,
and as I said, I gota lot of respect for those guys,
they're they're they're all good coaches,and you know, just when we
went through the process, Dan wasthe one that we felt made the most
(01:49):
sense for us based on what he'sdone in the past, winning a Cup
in Pittsburgh and Coach of the Yearand coaching Olympic team and then kind of
reinventing himself and down in Withchella havingsuccess last year with one of the you
know, I think we're the thirdoldest team last year, got to the
stands at the call of the Cupfinals, unfortunately, losing four games,
all by one goal and the threeof them in overtime, including the game
(02:10):
seven crushing loss, and then doingit again this year with a much younger
team. You know, he's stillwant of the four teams that's in the
finals again. So that's exciting beable to do that and see that,
saw how his teams played, howhe builds relationships with his players, and
I thought that was a key factorin choosing him to be the guy to
lead the krack in here next year. And beyond Ron you mentioned that the
(02:35):
building relationships part. What kind ofvoice is needed to get this team back
into a place where their back endof the playoffs and how can Dan best
use that voice? Yeah, Imean it's interesting. If we talked last
summer, I probably would have said, Okay, our offense is great,
we need to fix our defense,and yet our defense finished in the top
ten goals against, with the onlyplayoff team, our non playoff team to
(02:57):
finish in the top ten. Butyet our offense went from out for in
the league the bottom four in theleague. And you know, you're trying
to figure out why that is.So, you know, as I said,
and then it kind of talked alittle bit about in his part of
the press conference is understanding getting theplayers to understand exactly what their role is
as part of the team and whythat role is important, and also getting
(03:17):
to understand why we're playing a certainway as a team and getting to buy
in and play that way. Sowe feel we get some tweaks to do,
certainly in the neutra zone in theoffense zone, to increase hopefully our
offense and get it back to wherewe think it can be, and if
we do that, we think we'llhave more success. Where do you feel
the tweaks are more necessary? Moretransition game, more net front presence,
(03:38):
elsewhere. Maybe, Well, youwatch a lot of our games. I'm
sure if I asked you, youwould say that two years ago we looked
a lot faster than we did lastyear, and I think a lot of
that came in our neutra zone.We seem to go D to D a
lot more than we did north south, and I think when you start doing
that, then you're forwards maybe aren'treloading as quick as they need to.
(03:58):
And then also in the offense zone, you're not getting in with that with
control of the puck or with speedand pressure on the forward check, and
I think that leads to less offensiveopportunities. So there's some things we need
to tweak and kind of how westructure the offensive zone, and we'll have
those conversations moving forward. But youknow, I like to play fast.
I like to see us play fast, and hopefully we can get back to
looking that way in the ice theway we did two years ago. Cracking
(04:21):
GM Ron Francis for this INFNESCE.Mike been at thirty two Bar and Grill
and you're home for the Cracking ninethree point three k r FM. What
you just said, they're kind ofI think every fan's like, Okay,
good, like like you want toplay fast, you want to go north
south. That's I mean, lookat your numbers from when you were playing.
I mean, I'm sure that's thestyle you want. Was never fast.
Just for the record, I wasnever fast. Offensively, you were
(04:41):
good, okay, but you topsix sky with Lemiu and Yaga right here.
I think that I think you aresomething saying something. All you have
to do is get there. Ijust had to get there, you know.
But there's in this in the NHLwe're watching now, there's so much
of this trapping and you know,it was there for a long time,
the whole left wing lock thing,and then it went away and then it
was back, you know. Forfor this franchise, it feels like new
(05:05):
new team or a new new market. You want to see a little more
up Temple, right, You've gotto still entertain when you when Samantha Hallway,
you guys are talking, how muchof her conversation with Hey, we
got to get people excited again.We got to find a guy that's going
to get people excited not just aboutyou know, his personality, but on
the ice, like play an excitingbrand of hockey. How much was this
almost in some ways a business decision, Well, I think that's it certainly
(05:27):
factors into your decision. You lookat all the different angles and and I
think Dan with his personality, sautein the press conference and his you know,
ability to connect with the players,they will also have that same ability
to connect with I think our fansand in the community. So I think
that's an important part as we tryand build this thing and continue to grow
in the right way to ultimately becominga championship franchise. So, uh,
(05:48):
that certainly factors in. But youknow, I think also on the ice
is a big part of it.That's what the fans come and see,
and you know, head coach isa big part of that. We've got
some time here, we've got somecaps pace, so hopefully we can do
some things over the next couple ofmonths, whether it's signing free agents,
whether it's making some trades. Someofar what we did between year and one
and year two. No guarantee thathappens, but we're certainly looking at that,
(06:11):
and we have the money and thebacking of the ownership to go ahead
and try and do that. Sothat's things we'll look at to help make
our team even better in that regardas well. Run this league turns over
coaches at a faster rate than anyother of the professional sports leagues, the
major leagues, in fact, anyof them. And I look at it
almost like from it as a goodthing, like there is no complacency,
There is no like we're going tosit back and wait, you know what
(06:33):
you have in an organization. Withthat said, you did make a move
with a coach you got to thefinal, it got to the second round
last year, was a Coach ofthe Year candidate as well. But you
made that move. And I heardthe question asked today about you know,
the salary cap and invested in winningwith Samantha, You're a salary cap team,
you go up against it. There'sobviously an investment to win, but
(06:55):
how much of an urgency is thereto win as well? Immediately here from
ownership to you and to the hockeyops side, especially with you know year
four coming up, maybe the NBAcoming down the road, a challenge for
the consumer dollar in this market,But how much is there a sense of
urgency to win? And how doyou balance that with the fact you've got
some young guys coming up? TheShane right the winter it ins and all
those guys. Yeah, No,I think there's always an urgency to win.
(07:17):
I mean, you know, eachand every year you go into the
season, you want to make theplayoffs. We've seen once you get into
the playoffs, anything can happen.So that is our goal in each and
every year, So there's an urgencyin that regard. I think there's an
urgency as well too. Mayor fanshave been great and we want to kind
of get them excited like we hadtwo years ago. You know, if
(07:38):
we did the first season, thenthe third season second, and the second
season third, we'd all be ina different spot today. But unfortunately we
chose to do it backwards the yeartwo and three. But you know,
I think that's you saw the passionwe had in our fan base. She
saw the excitement we had not onlyin the arena but in the community,
and that's what we're ultimately striving todo, and that's how you build a
(07:58):
successful franchise. So we need toget back to having that success on the
ice, and I think that translatesto having that success ultimately in our fan
base and in the community. Sothat's what we want to do. Ron
I loved hearing about you interviewed DanBilsma back in your Carolina days. Players
change, people change, of course, coaches can change. How is Dan
Bilsma different now versus say, tenyears ago? Yeah, you know,
(08:22):
and I think Dan and I've hadthis conversation, so I don't feel like
I'm talking out of turn here.But you know, Dan came in,
want to Stanley Cup one Coach ofthe Year, ended up getting let go
by Pittsburgh. But I still thinkas a coach, you're feeling pretty good
about sself. That's not a badfirst four years as a coach in the
NHL. And now he's looking forthe next job, and I think,
(08:46):
you know, maybe some of itwas he felt and you have to feel
confident in yourself, but he feltvery confident in his abilities as a coach,
and I think he felt no matterwhere he went, he was going
to be able to kind of fixthe team he going to and go there.
We were kind of at a rebuildstage and trying to build our program
(09:07):
up in Carolina. You know,we were not at the place where we
could spend money like other teams.And I think as a coacher looking at
that thinking, you know, isthat really where I want to go.
I want to go someplace else,And you know he chose Buffalo at that
point versus US. It didn't goas great from in Buffalo, and then
ultimately was an assistant coach and thenI think, you know, this game,
(09:30):
whether you're a coach, whether you'rea player, it's humbling, right.
You know, I played twenty threeyears. I've had stretches where i
didn't think I'd ever score another goal, and I'm thinking, you know,
what's wrong with me? And andit teaches you to sort of reassess and
look in the mirror times and Ithink you know, Dan went through that
process. The game humbled him alittle bit in that and then he went
(09:50):
back and said, Okay, whatdo I need to do different if I'm
going to get back into this Andnot an easy job to step in and
do one year in Charlotte as anassistant coach, not a head coach,
as an assistant because it was Florida'saffiliate and you're kind of just part of
that staff, and then getting thejob in CV transitioning. We started here
for the first month, we werein Coachella starting November first, but we
(10:13):
didn't play our first home game tillDecember eighteenth, So again, not an
easy step for a guy that buthe showed that humility and the willingness to
go back and work at it,and I think that that's really served him
well and is tweaked. As hetalked about in the press conference, building
relationship with players and that different approachthat he didn't have maybe in the past,
(10:33):
having now, I think has servedhim well, and I think that'll
serve us well bringing him into organizationwith our group that we have here in
Seattle. So how different is themodern athlete now than say the athlete that
played this game ten fifteen years ago. Totally different. You know, I
started in the NHL in eighty one. I'm a dinosaur compared to the guys
today. You know what they donow in the offseason. You know,
(10:56):
they all have a personal trainer,they have a person nutrition is, they
have a personal psych person sometimes.I mean, they have all these tools.
Back in the day, I wentto the gym on my own and
I trained myself. Back in theday, I was told what to do
and I didn't question it, rightthat this is what you're gonna do,
this is how we're gonna play andyou didn't question went out there and did
(11:16):
it, and if you didn't doit, you're sent down to the minors
or worse. I think one GMsaid, I'll send you so far the
Hockey News can't find you not tobe one of my teammates. But so,
you know, I think in today'sgame, you know, when you
tell somebody, it's not just okay, that's great. They want to know
why, right, why are youasking me to do this? And you
(11:39):
have to be able to explain tothem, like in your game, if
you do this, this will helpyou, and these are the reasons why
as a team. You know,if we do this as a team,
this is why we think we'll havesuccess. And so it's it's much more
in that way building relationships and communicatingwith players than it was in my era.
And you know, the coach camein, gave a speech in my
(12:01):
day and was gone. And nowit's you know, coach getting out,
having coffee, having breakfast with theplayers, learning about them, talking,
building those relationships. Explaining the detailsof not only what you want, but
why you want it and how itbenefits the player and the team. I
think is critical and it's so differentthan my air. Wrap it up at
disc with Ron Francis and let yougo. I'm assuming you guys are heading
(12:22):
down to the desert right to gowatch a little HL action. Dan and
his wife will be flying back tonight. I'm a scheduled to fly down there
tomorrow afternoon. Yeah, for gamesone and two on Wednesday and Friday.
Do you look outside? You don'twant to go down there right now?
You sure? I got some thingsto do tomorrow morning before that fight.
You might be busy, and letme just wrap it up this Ron.
If you touched it on a littlebit with Mike, and you've got some
(12:45):
things coming up. You've got thedraft on June twenty eighth starting then,
you got a lot of you havea lot of draft picks. There is
some salary cap rooms, some decisionsto be made. How different do you
expect this team to look in thefall and what would you tell fans about
what your expectations for you and theorganization are heading into next season. Yeah.
We just finished pro meetings two weeksago where we go through all the
(13:07):
different teams and the free agents.As we've had those meetines. We just
finished last week. All our amateurmeetings, we go through the draft.
As you mentioned, we've got ninepicks again this year, so in three
drafts. Usually at seventy year weshould have twenty eight picks. I believe
at the end of this draft wewill have forty two or forty three prospects
in our pipeline, which is accumulationof the draft picks we've had over time
(13:30):
and a lot of really you know, promising young picks in the pipeline.
So that is exciting, but that'sdown the road. You know. Our
goal right now with the big clubis to do similar what we did the
first year, look at each andevery avenue possible to make our team better.
I can't sit here and promise thatthe free agents are going to want
to sign here. You know,they might get more money someplace else,
(13:50):
or they might have a friendship witha team on a different player. But
we're certainly going to be in thefragian market. We're going to be certainly
trying to improve our prayer, ourteam through free agents. See, we'll
also explore possible trades that includes,you know, doing things within our lineup
using draft picks. Whatever we have. We do have that draft capital,
we do have prospects, So there'sa lot of tools we can use that
(14:11):
we feel to to try and improveour peam. And that's our goal between
now and when we start in October. Ultimately, you know, our goal
is to get back in the playoffsand be successful again. So that's our
goal next season. Hopefully our playersare ready to go with the lineup we
bring into training camp and we canget off to a good start and accomplish
that goal next season. Because that'sthat's why we're here. Why would you
(14:33):
not want to look at this place? Why would you not want to come
here as a free agent? Imean, like seriously, like like you
know, Carolina, I mean Iknow, like there are are relationships and
there's money. Weird, sometimes moneydoes talk. I get that, and
you can only spend for people whodon't know. I want to mention this
again because we hurt in the pressconference. This is a salary cap league.
So when you hear people say,well are they going to spend the
money that question was asked, I'mlike, wait a minute, they spend
money. Look at this organization.You guys you don't want here, do
(14:56):
you? Like? I don't thinkyou go for one? No, our
ownerships of given the gre light rightfrom day one. They've never questioned anything
that I want to go and signa player or trade for a player.
They're all in. So the moneyaspect, that is not an issue,
the cap issue. But you know, you go out and you're looking at
for agents and there might be oneplayer at a certain position and five teams
looking at him and somebody's looking togive them more money. That doesn't work
(15:18):
against your cap, or it doesn'twork in your situation moving forward. So
there's things that factor into those decisions. Maybe the guy wh's an East Coast
guy doesn't want to come to WestCoast. Maybe he's got family on the
East Coast. Maybe he's got arelationship and he wants to go to a
certain market and stuff. There's alot of things that factor into Fragans as
far as wanting to come. Nothingwrong with our city. Our city is
(15:39):
fantastic, our ownership group is outstanding. Our facilities are top notch, both
at CPA and the practice facility.Our players get treated as good, if
not better than any other team inthe league. So from that standpoint,
yeah, there's a lot of freegentsthat want to come play in Seattle.
We're just hoping we can get theones that we want, whether it's via
trade or freegency, and improve ourteam. I'll let you go. I
(16:00):
appreciate your time. Michael give youhis list of top twenty five old Google
now Ron Francis workout plan by Yeah, but he's got a list of free
agents he'll pass along with you aswell. So I'm assuming draft picks too.
Oh yeah, everyone that plays fairnothing everyone there enough. Everyone that
played for the Silver Tips. That'suh, they played for the Tips.
That's who Mikey wants you to draft. Well, thank you so much.
I appreciate you coming. Bye,thank you. Thanks Rod,
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