{"id":112919,"date":"2021-06-28T20:32:59","date_gmt":"2021-06-29T00:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=112919"},"modified":"2021-06-28T20:32:59","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T00:32:59","slug":"seattle-kraken-will-use-charlotte-checkers-as-ahl-affiliate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/06\/28\/seattle-kraken-will-use-charlotte-checkers-as-ahl-affiliate\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Kraken Will Use Charlotte Checkers as AHL Affiliate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/06\/22\/2021-kraken-expansion-draft-preview-panthers\/\" target=\"_self\">Florida Panthers<\/a> announced a joint AHL agreement with the Seattle Kraken and Charlotte Checkers for the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Are we officially the nicest team, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SeattleKraken?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@seattlekraken<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve entered into a joint agreement to place Seattle&#39;s prospects with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CheckersHockey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@checkershockey<\/a> for the 2021-22 season. \u2b07\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UT47tXehHh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/UT47tXehHh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; x &#8211; Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlaPanthers\/status\/1409556732880248832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 28, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Seattle Kraken To Use Charlotte Checkers as AHL Affiliate<\/h2>\n<p>This agreement between Seattle and Florida will allow both franchises to play their prospects in the AHL for Charlotte. Seattle is following in the inaugural footsteps of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/vegas-golden-knights\/\" target=\"_self\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> who had shared the Chicago Wolves with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/blues\/\" target=\"_self\">St. Louis Blues<\/a> in 2017-18. The agreement is for one year as the Kraken will put their AHL team in Palm Springs, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>Though they have the offseason and Draft ahead of them, Seattle has only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockeydb.com\/ihdb\/stats\/pdisplay.php?pid=197269\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luke Henman<\/a> under contract. A joint operation will facilitate a smoother expansion for the Kraken who won&#8217;t have to worry about filling out both an NHL and AHL team. Florida will provide the Checkers head coach while Seattle will provide an assistant coach.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle General Manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/f\/francro01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ron Francis<\/a> emphasized the importance of the AHL in prospect development: &#8220;<em>The AHL plays such a key role in the development of NHL players that this was a very important decision for the long-term success of our organization.&#8221; <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Francis previously was GM of the Carolina Hurricanes from 2014-2018. It&#8217;s worth noting that the Charlotte Checkers were Carolina&#8217;s AHL affiliate under Francis&#8217; tenure, so he has prior experience with the franchise.<\/p>\n<h3>Charlotte Checkers Return<\/h3>\n<p>The joint arrangement won&#8217;t solely be beneficial to the Kraken. The Charlotte Checkers return to the AHL after not participating in the 2020-21 AHL season due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Having the support of two NHL franchises will be incredibly beneficial to Charlotte considering the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/04\/27\/toronto-maple-leafs-pooling-money-to-help-marlies\/\" target=\"_self\">AHL&#8217;s financial losses<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, Seattle is set to pick second overall in the NHL draft. They will be drafting a quality player and having a stable development track in place for that player will be critical to their long term success.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"3llOtT-uQdRei2v4I9QDYg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1150172620\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'3llOtT-uQdRei2v4I9QDYg',sig:'CQegUj697meYFnGo9kkim8aJQCjAQO-r1qCvCcKJ2Y0=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1150172620',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Panthers announced a joint AHL agreement with the Seattle Kraken and Charlotte Checkers for the 2021-22 season. Are we officially the nicest team, @seattlekraken? We\u2019ve entered into a joint agreement to place Seattle&#39;s prospects with @checkershockey for the 2021-22 season. \u2b07\ufe0fhttps:\/\/t.co\/UT47tXehHh &mdash; x &#8211; Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) June 28, 2021 Seattle Kraken To [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3866,"featured_media":112933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4547,34,4548,5369],"tags":[112,5793,955],"class_list":["post-112919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-panthers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-seattle-kraken","tag-ahl","tag-ahl-news","tag-nhl-news"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3866"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}