We have turned the corner on training camp from the “Who will stick around for a while?” phase to the “Who will make the opening-night roster?” phase. While there’s plenty of whittling left to do for the Kraken (and a big round of cuts is looming), we feel we’ve seen enough to form our own opinions about which players will be with the NHL team when it breaks camp at the end of this week.
Worth noting, we’re still just projecting here based on our own observations of how things are playing out in camp. Who is getting the longest looks? Who has taken advantage of preseason playing opportunities? Which young players are skating alongside mostly veterans, as coach Dave Hakstol starts piecing together potential regular-season lines?
Even with everything we’ve seen over the past two weeks, this was still a hard exercise, and we don’t envy the Kraken brass tasked with deciding who to keep and who to cut. In fact, while we made our final picks here, we would love to see your opinions in the comments about what you think we got right and wrong.
Here are our picks for which players make the opening-night roster for the Kraken.
Bubble players we think will make it
Ryker Evans
We’re starting with our hottest take here, and this one could blow up on us if we’ve read the situation incorrectly. Throughout this camp, we’ve maintained that Ryker Evans deserves a chance to play at the NHL level, but with the signing of left-shot defenseman Brian Dumoulin this offseason, we didn’t see a spot for Evans on the Kraken blue line. For Evans to make the team, we figured an injury would have to occur or Evans would have to play so well, the Kraken would have no choice but to keep him.
The latter scenario seems to be coming to fruition.
After watching Evans dance around NHL competition, quarterback the power play, and frankly outperform some of the veteran defensemen on the team, we are sold. We now predict the Kraken will find a way to keep him with the big club.
What sealed the deal for us was Seattle’s home game against Vancouver on Thursday, in which Evans was deployed on the right side—his off-hand side—and didn’t miss a beat. Hakstol used the word “outstanding” that night to describe Evans’s handling of the puck in the offensive end of the ice, a word we don’t hear often from the bench boss.
Exactly where Evans fits in remains to be seen, but his ability to play either side helps his case for snagging a lineup spot.
Vince Dunn was mysteriously absent from camp for a few days but returned to the ice Tuesday to run through drills on his own with coach Jay Leach. So, filling in for Dunn doesn’t look like it will be an option for Evans.
On the other side of the coin, even assuming Dunn is ready to go by next week, we still see a scenario in which one of Jaycob Megna or Cale Fleury (or both) gets put on waivers, making Evans one of seven defensemen (or eight if they keep two extra blueliners) on the roster.
Having said all this, we only believe our own prediction here if Evans has a real opportunity to play games at the NHL level; we don’t think Seattle will keep him if he’s going to sit as a healthy scratch. Thus, if he is stealing a roster spot, that means a veteran will have to come out of the lineup, or maybe players will have to rotate through the press box.
Tye Kartye
The situation for Tye Kartye coming into camp was a little different than that of Evans. There has always minimally been a spot on the roster for Kartye and even a potential spot in the lineup; he just needed to beat out other players to secure that spot. We think he has done that.
Aside from Monday’s game against Edmonton, Kartye has largely skated on a line with veterans this preseason, specifically Brandon Tanev and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. Seeing this trio grouped together really felt like Hakstol testing out a potential fourth-line combo.
Kartye has made impressive plays at every stage of training camp and appears poised to build off his 2022-23 season, which brought an AHL rookie of the year award and five points in 10 Stanley Cup Playoff games. Kartye’s best play came in the split-squad game against Calgary, when he was stopped on a breakaway by Dustin Wolf, but then recovered in time to intercept an outlet pass and snipe it past the Flames netminder. The kid is NHL ready.
Kartye’s inclusion would likely mean Shane Wright and Kole Lind go to Coachella Valley, at least to start the season.
We’ve liked what we’ve seen from Shane Wright and think he’s right on the cusp of being ready. But we still think more time in the AHL, playing at the top of Coachella Valley’s lineup, will benefit Seattle’s most touted prospect and make him better in the long run. There’s no point in keeping a guy like Wright on the NHL roster if it means he’s going to play six minutes a night or be a healthy scratch. He has not had a normal developmental runway, and we think he still needs at least a little of that to become an impactful NHLer.
As for Lind, we love the player and still think he deserves a shot in the NHL. But he came into this camp needing to prove he was more NHL ready than Kartye and Wright, and that he brought more to the team than veterans like Devin Shore and John Hayden. From what we’ve seen, Kartye has the upper hand on Lind, and we are not convinced the brass will have seen enough from Lind to keep him over a serviceable fill-in veteran like Shore.
Joey Daccord
We don’t think it’s a coincidence that Philipp Grubauer’s batterymate for most of training camp has been Joey Daccord. With Seattle’s players split into two groups, Grubauer and Daccord have tended to stick together for their on-ice sessions, while Chris Driedger has mostly played opposite Ales Stezka.
We paused for a moment when Driedger joined Grubauer Sunday and Monday mornings, but Grubauer played the full game Monday night, while Driedger watched from the bench.
Daccord has earned his opportunity. He was lights out in the Calder Cup Playoffs last season, keeping a firm grasp on the Firebirds goal crease, even after Driedger returned from injury. His play earned him a one-way contract for this year and next, and he has continued to look solid throughout this camp. At this point, we think it’s Daccord’s job to lose, rather than the other way around.
Devin Shore
Of our “bubble” picks to make the roster, we have the least conviction in our selection of Shore to stay with the big club. He hasn’t blown any of the other bubble players out of the water, but he is a quintessential “extra” forward, perfect to keep around for added depth. At 29 years old, there will be less concern for getting him playing time, and he can fill in at any forward position, including center.
Hayden ticks a lot of the same boxes and adds more physicality. So if Hakstol and his staff aim to keep two extra forwards, and one of those is a veteran guy they can plug in when needed, Hayden may be the pick here. But we’re giving Shore a slight edge based on what we’ve seen in preseason action.
Bubble players we think will miss out
We talked throughout this article about why we think Wright, Lind, and Hayden will be among the final cuts from the Kraken forward corps. On the blue line, we think the same will happen for Megna and Fleury, though neither deserves to be sent through waivers. Both have had solid camps, and Fleury looks like he has taken a big step in his development this offseason.
The problem for Fleury and Megna is that the Kraken simply have too many NHL defensemen, and Evans only adds to that pool. For Fleury’s sake, we hope he gets a chance to play regular minutes this season, whether that be at the NHL or AHL level. But barring injuries, it’s hard to see a path to regular shifts on the Kraken for either Fleury or Megna.
Predicting the opening-night roster
Here’s what we are predicting will be the opening-night roster for the Seattle Kraken. We think Hakstol will keep two extra forwards this season, as opposed to two extra defensemen, as he has done in the past.
Again, let us know in the comments where you think we went wrong here.
Forwards
Jared McCann / Matty Beniers / Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz / Alex Wennberg / Andre Burakovsky
Oliver Bjorkstrand / Yanni Gourde / Eeli Tolvanen
Brandon Tanev / Pierre-Edouard Bellemare / Tye Kartye
Kailer Yamamoto / Devin Shore
Defense
Vince Dunn / Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak / Will Borgen
Brian Dumoulin / Justin Schultz
Ryker Evans
Goalies
Philipp Grubauer
Joey Daccord
Other candidates for last roster spot
Shane Wright
Kole Lind
John Hayden
Cale Fleury
Jaycob Megna
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Great breakdown.
I do wonder if sitting two-of-three in a rotation of Yamamoto, Kartye, and Shore is something Hakstol is interested in? He seems to want to play guys consistently… and if you have Lind and Hayden sitting in the press box instead you get Kartye, Wright, and Shore playing top line minutes in Coachella and no worries on waivers for injury call-ups. Development and chemistry-wise, this seems to make more sense to me.
Go Kraken!!!
Interesting you keep Ryker on the roster, but have him listed as the healthy scratch. Looking at the roster, it might be Schultz as the healthy scratch to make room for Evans. I am not confident in saying that, but Dumoulin is a shutdown D, so Evans can explore his offensive tendencies more with him as a partner.
Haha! I already felt like I was going out on a limb by saying Evans was going to make the team, so I got too scared to take Schultz out of the lineup. 🙂
I only mentioned it as the article indicated you did not think they would keep him as the healthy scratch, but then that is where you put him. 🙂 It is really hard to let players you know go and allow new ones to come up, but I love that the prospects are pushing for spots as the competition makes the Kraken better.
I agree blaizg… considering he’s waiver exempt and D typically takes longer to develop I don’t see the Kraken limiting his playing time when he’s just a three hour flight away for an injury call-up.
I think Wright has outplayed Bellemare, I wouldnt be surprised to see Wright in and Bellemare out.
I think the Faceoff percentage that Bellemare brings is huge. Otherwise, I agree, Wright has outplayed him. I think Pierre is a locker room guy too. Can’t be understated. Chemistry is important
But it isn’t Bellemare that Wright needs to outplay, it’s Wennberg.
We aren’t going to deploy Wright in a limited minutes, 4C role. He’ll be better served logging big time in all situations as a Top6 C in Coachella. And we need him to take a BIG step this season to be in a position to be 2C behind Beniers NEXT season. Else we’ll need to re-sign Wennberg when he expires in the Summer and that will be a barrier to Wright claiming that spot as his in the years ahead.
Regarding Evans it comes down to basically a rotational player or top D pairing ice time with CV.
My vote is the ice time with CV than sitting now and then in the press box. I agree with the forwards for the most part but 14th forward spot comes down to Shore vs Hayden.
Goalie wise eh, I don’t know if Daccord is the answer long term at back up but thankfully i don’t make that decision. With limited games vs NHL level talents its really hard to say how he’ll do long term. Hopefully the quality of play in the AHL can transfer to the NHL.
I’d agree he’s probably not going to back up gru long term, I could see him taking the 1# job within a few years. He’s got to play with the kraken this season or he will have to clear waivers as I understand it. No way he clears waivers.
Hard to say if Daccord will end up as the starter in Seattle that depends on how our prospect goalies develop.
That is definitely true, my point is that will never happen if we don’t keep him up this year. from what he has shown us so far it’s a risk that we don’t want to take, I think we want to keep him in a kraken jersey if the other option is to watch him get taken on the wire.
Thumbs down on Daccord: up on Driedger. Send Joey down for a full season.
If they send Joey down he’s gonna get claimed. It’s unthinkable anyone claims Driedger at $3.5m AAV/$4.5m actual.
With
With Wright eligible for the AHL, I think a full season there is going to be more beneficial than 4th line in the NHL. He’s looking better than last year which is positive but groom him to take over for Wennberg next year.
My guess is Lind and Hayden make the roster. Both have Donato like qualities that Hakstoll seems to love. I’m thinking Evans in the AHL makes more sense and keep Fleury (RHD) over Megna.
I find it interesting that Poturalski is getting so many minutes this late in camp. Could it be they’re taking a look at him because he would embrace the press box/play intermittently role like Hayden or Shore or even Lind? It’d be a nice reward for a career AHL guy, a professional. Only to get the Big 3 (Wright, Evans Kartye) consistent time at Coachella? Just a thought.
As much as the young guns are impressing in preseason there’s a handful of reasons I think we send them back down:
1. Waiver eligibility
2. Where will they log the most time that benefits their development
3. Offseason vet signings that clog the route to the roster
4. Maintaining competitiveness in Coachella as a good clutch of prospects transition from juniors to AHL
5. This isn’t the season we’re looking to make a deep run
I think in the minds of the front office this is first and foremost a development season. Yes, we still want to win now, but the bigger objective is winning in the future, so decisions will be made to do whatever helps that most, making the NHL playoffs this year would be a bonus.
To me that means getting fringe young players big minutes in expanded roles in Coachella and using the signed vets to plug the gap for now and leverage the waiver eligibility to cover injuries and get them some NHL experience this year.
I’ve got to think having future pieces such as Wright, Kartye, Evans et al, be the big players and gel as a winning unit in Coachella before taking a collective step into the big leagues next season, is more beneficial than having them see inconsistent time and limited roles in the big club.
As such I think the 7th D is Fleury (who has made some nice plays of late) once more, Megna and Evans are sent down.
The 4th line starts as Tanev-PEB-Yamamoto, with Lind and Shore as scratches. I can see Poturalski beating Lind to the spot, he’s looked better in preseason, covers C as well as W, is a right hand stick(!) and is on a 1-way contract. However, I also see him as the pre-eminant forward leader in CV to mentor the influx of youngsters down there and I think he’ll be more valuable to us in that role, if he clears waivers.
Daccord wins the backup job as he’s far more at risk of being claimed in waivers. And if Driedger gets to Coachella then the Firebirds have a quality netminder to help them compete and he gets the regular playing time he needs to build his game again after a long time out.