State of the Franchise – Kraken return to action Saturday in Philadelphia

We’re back! After an outrageously long hiatus, the Seattle Kraken finally return to game action Saturday at the Flyers, kicking off a critical four-game road trip through Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York (Islanders), and Boston. 

Now that Seattle’s players have reconvened in the City of Brotherly Love after their vacations to far-off destinations, this felt like a good time to reflect on what has transpired so far this season and consider where this team might go in the remaining 32 games on the schedule. 

Entering play on Saturday, the Kraken sit at 21-19-10, good for 52 standings points and two points out of the last wild card spot in the Western Conference. The St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, and Calgary Flames are ahead of Seattle but can all theoretically be tied or jumped in just one night if everyone loses and Seattle wins. 

So, the Kraken are very much within striking distance of a playoff spot, despite an up-and-down campaign so far. 

Reasons to be optimistic

If you’ve stuck with Sound Of Hockey for a while, you know we generally lean toward optimism. It is way more fun to be bullish on Seattle’s chances than it is to be bearish, because at the end of the day, all we want to do is cover a winner.

Exiting the break, the Kraken occupy an awkward spot somewhere between bullishness and bearishness, but there is reason to be optimistic that the team will make the postseason for the second season in a row. 

Good health

As we are writing this, we are simultaneously knocking on a big piece of wood. The Kraken are fully healthy for the first time since Opening Night, when Brandon Tanev took a nasty open-ice hit in Vegas and missed the subsequent month of hockey. (Worth noting, Alison Lukan reported that Justin Schultz did not participate in morning skate in Philadelphia due to personal reasons.) That should bring Seattle’s fans a nice dose of optimism.

Though he is still technically listed on injured reserve, we believe that even Pierre-Edouard Bellemare—who hasn’t played since blocking a shot with his foot in a 4-3 overtime loss at the Dallas Stars on Dec. 18—could be set to return to game action. Although he doesn’t move the needle offensively, it’s a luxury to have a veteran center like Bellemare, who can kill penalties and win face-offs, waiting in the wings. Expect PEB to be activated off IR in the coming days.

When the season started, we recall wondering which forward would be scratched from the lineup between Bellemare, Tye Kartye, and Kailer Yamamoto. Those questions didn’t linger for long, though, because Tanev immediately got hurt, meaning there were lineup spots for all those forwards. But now, the team has added Tomas Tatar to the top of the forward corps, which adds another question about who plays and who sits. 

After a first half riddled with injuries and illnesses to key players, it will be interesting to see how coach Dave Hakstol manages a full roster moving forward. We loved the look he showed during the latter stages of Seattle’s nine-game win streak, when Jared McCann and Andre Burakovsky were part of a de facto “fourth” line. Seattle looked the best it has looked all season during those couple games when it was truly rolling four lines that could score, so we would love to see Hakstol go back to something similar in the near future. 

Can this group stay healthy the rest of the way?

Joey Daccord

One positive that came out of Seattle’s many injury woes was the emergence of netminder Joey Daccord as a bona fide NHLer and potentially as a true No. 1 backstop. It was telling that even after Philipp Grubauer returned from a lower-body injury that kept him sidelined from Dec. 9 through Jan. 21, Daccord still started the four remaining games before the break. 

We wondered for a while if Seattle was relying too heavily on Daccord, but after his play cooled from red-hot to more of a magenta hue, he was still more than solid between the pipes. 

Daccord has impressed in his first full NHL season, posting a 15-9-9 record, 2.32 goals-against average, and .921 save percentage. Seattle will need both Daccord and Grubauer to be effective down the stretch, but Joey has shown he can shoulder most of the load if needed. 

Daccord is a big reason for optimism.

This group can do it

Another reason to be optimistic is that the majority of this group was here last season and knows how to reach the playoffs. The Kraken have had some painful dips in play in the first 50 games, but they overcame a lot in the last month before the long All-Star break/bye week kicked in. 

As Hakstol said after Seattle’s painful loss in San Jose on Jan. 30, the team now controls its own destiny. If they can get hot in these next few games and get themselves on a roll, the Kraken have the ability to make it to the postseason and even surprise some higher-ranked opponents. 

Reasons to be pessimistic

Of course, based on Seattle’s current situation, making the playoffs is anything but guaranteed at this point. As our own John Barr pointed out in our recent Roundtable article, only 33 percent of teams with 52 points through 50 games end up making the playoffs. 

That would indicate the odds are stacked against Seattle. While it looks like the Kraken are within arm’s reach of a wild card spot, leapfrogging one team is difficult in today’s NHL because of the potential three-point game that goes to overtime. Jumping over multiple teams is always tough, and as of the writing of this story, Seattle will need to get past at least three squads between now and the end of the season. 

Post-break games are critical

We also believe that these first few games out of the break will be pivotal in helping general manager Ron Francis decide if he should be a seller or not at the March 8 trade deadline. 

One would think that with improved health and plenty of rest, Seattle should come out of the break firing on all cylinders. But if you think back to last year, the Kraken embarked on a similar road trip upon returning to action, visiting all three New York Metropolitan teams, then Philadelphia, and then Winnipeg. The team went 1-3-1 on that trip and lost Burakovsky for the season in its first game back. 

Our hope is that the Kraken learned from their mistakes and will come out of the break ready to go, but it is worth noting that the Flyers—Seattle’s opponent on Saturday—have already played two games since the pause and are 2-0-0 with wins over contenders in Florida and Winnipeg. 

Deadline decisions looming

We don’t think the franchise is in a state yet where it should push its chips in and buy at the deadline, hoping to make a deep playoff run. So, the options will most likely be to again stand pat (like Francis did in 2022-23) or to sell off expiring contracts for draft picks (like he did in the team’s inaugural season). 

Seattle has several important veteran players whose contracts are up after this season, including Jordan Eberle, Alex Wennberg, and Justin Schultz. All of those players have value on the trade market, but there will come a tipping point where Francis has to decide if these individuals are in the team’s future plans or not. If the team isn’t going anywhere this season, then the Kraken will want to salvage what they can and trade these players. 

If the team comes out of the break sluggish, Francis may have no choice but to sell. At that point, the season would effectively be over. 

What do you think, folks? Can the Kraken make the playoffs?