In recent weeks, the Seattle Kraken hadn’t finalized their plans for veteran defenseman Mark Giordano as they wanted to meet with him first to see if he’d be open to extending his stay with them. In the end, however, Pierre LeBrun reported in the latest TSN "Insider Trading" segment (video link) that after meeting with the blueliner, the Kraken have shifted their focus toward finding a trade for their captain.
The 38-year-old has had a decent season with the expansion franchise, leading their rearguards in scoring with 22 points in 44 games while logging more than 21 minutes a night. While he’s no longer the top-pairing fixture he was in Calgary for a large chunk of his career, he’s still a capable top-four option who should garner some interest on a rental blueline market that projects to be a strong one between now and next month’s trade deadline.
Giordano is in the final year of a six-year, $40.5M contract that carries some trade protection in the form of a 12-team no-trade clause. While that means GM Ron Francis has 19 teams to trade the veteran to, it seems likely that they’ll try to work with Giordano to get him to one of his preferred destinations.
In order to do so, Seattle will almost certainly have to retain the maximum of 50% of Giordano’s AAV, which works out to $3.375M. LeBrun notes that they’re willing to get creative to fully utilize their cap space — more than $21M currently, per CapFriendly — so it stands to reason that they’ll be willing to retain on Giordano to maximize their return.
At that price tag, several contending teams should be interested in Giordano’s services, so Francis should be able to generate a strong return. Back in expansion, their reported asking price was a first-round pick along with a third-rounder for them not to take him, a price Calgary clearly wasn’t willing to pay. Considering that type of return was what David Savard yielded a year ago as a rental, there’s a chance Seattle could get close to that in a move. Now that it’s known that he’ll be traded, the Kraken should be fielding several phone calls about their captain — if they haven’t been in touch with other teams already — which makes Giordano someone to keep an eye on over the coming weeks.
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