Ding dong, Daniel Sprong is back in Seattle, or he will be as soon as his visa paperwork is processed. Sprong, a fan favorite in Seattle two seasons ago, scored 27 goals in 82 games for the Kraken, making his mark on the team’s offense.
But despite a career shooting percentage of 11.6 percent, Sprong has bounced around the NHL throughout his career, suiting up for six different teams. When it’s time for the Dutch winger to re-sign, teams—including the Kraken—have opted to let the sniper move on. The critique of Sprong’s game has always been his defensive play, or lack thereof. But he can score, and the Kraken know that finding consistent goal scorers in the NHL is no easy feat.
Sound Of Hockey’s own John Barr has already covered the salary cap implications in Monday Musings, so I won’t dive into that aspect here. Darren Brown also had a write-up following Sprong’s trade to Seattle. But I am curious to understand where he might fit into the lineup.
Ding Dong! Who’s there? The fourth line
Sprong was a key part of Seattle’s fourth line during the Kraken’s 2022-23 campaign. Rounding out the line were Ryan Donato and Morgan Geekie most nights, though others did rotate through. Despite bringing critical depth scoring, none of the three were re-signed after the 2022-23 season: Donato is now with the Chicago Blackhawks, and Geekie joined the Boston Bruins. While it might seem reasonable to assume Sprong will return to the fourth line, I have my doubts about whether that’s where he’ll ultimately play.
The 2024-25 edition of the fourth line consists of Brandon Tanev, Yanni Gourde, and Tye Kartye—all of whom excel on the defensive side of the ice. Tanev and Gourde are mainstays on the penalty-killing units, with Kartye often stepping in when one of the regular penalty killers is in the box. This defensive emphasis is what first raised my eyebrows about the idea of slotting Sprong into the fourth line, where the focus has shifted firmly to playing defense first.
Shift starts
With Sprong’s offense-first reputation, I took a closer look at how this season’s fourth-line trio—Kartye, Gourde, and Tanev—compares to the 2022-23 group of Donato, Geekie, and Sprong in terms of shift starts. All data in this article was gathered from MoneyPuck and is current as of Nov 13.
During the 2022-23 season, Sprong had a team-low 4.8 percent of his shifts start in the defensive zone. Overall, Donato, Geekie, and Sprong started only 7.3 percent of their 5v5 shifts in the defensive end. By contrast, this season’s fourth line of Tanev, Gourde, and Kartye has defensive-zone starts at 12.8 percent, jumping to 18.1 percent when factoring in all situations.
Neutral-zone starts can be murky to analyze since these face-offs can occur at center ice or near the blue lines, with four of the five dots being close to either the offensive or defensive zones, but still being considered neutral zone. This season’s fourth line starts 21.3 percent of shifts in the neutral zone, compared to 15.4 percent for Sprong’s line.
These percentages may seem small, but that’s due to hockey’s game flow. Roughly 50 to 60 percent of shifts start on the fly (meaning during play), while the rest begin with face-offs in the offensive, neutral, or defensive zones. When a player’s on-the-fly percentage is over 60 percent, it suggests the coaching staff is managing their minutes to control the situations they play in.
In this regard, Kartye, Gourde, and Tanev fall within the typical 50-to-60-percent range, with 56.6 percent of shifts starting on the fly. In contrast, Donato, Geekie, and Sprong had 64.1 percent of shifts starting on the fly; that’s the highest of any Kraken forward line, indicating that former coach Dave Hakstol was shielding their play to specific scenarios.
Third line
We’re still early in the season, and head coach Dan Bylsma continues to tweak the lines. However, one line stands out with a similar zone start profile to Sprong’s fourth line: the third line, currently featuring Andre Burakovsky, Shane Wright, and Eeli Tolvanen.
Burakovsky has moved around lines this season, currently starting 13.2 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone, which pulls up the line’s overall defensive-zone start average. In comparison, Wright and Tolvanen each start 9.6 percent of their shifts in the defensive zone. Both these lines have over 60 percent of shifts starting on the fly, feature the lowest defensive-zone deployment rates for their respective seasons, and show similar usage in offensive and neutral zones. This sheltered usage and shift-deployment model aligns with where the Kraken have seen Sprong succeed and could offer him the easiest path to playing time.
Adding a new player to the lineup always creates competition, meaning someone will have to sit or even be offloaded from the roster if everyone remains healthy when Vince Dunn returns from his stint on long-term injured reserve. The coaching staff has shown it won’t hesitate to scratch big-name players to make a point, as was recently done with Oliver Bjorkstrand.
Where will Sprong go?
We’ll see how this unfolds in the coming days and weeks. For now, Sprong is set to join the Kraken, and if he can replicate his scoring touch from his last stint in Seattle, there will be some tough decisions ahead for general manager Ron Francis as he works to keep the team under the salary cap. If Sprong doesn’t work out, he could be waived and potentially sent down to the AHL.
Where do you see Sprong slotting into the Kraken lineup? Who do you think will sit to make room for Sprong? Let me know in the comments below.
Blaiz Grubic
Blaiz Grubic is a contributor at Sound Of Hockey. A passionate hockey fan and player for over 30 years, Blaiz grew up in the Pacific Northwest and is an alumni of Washington State University (Go Cougs!). When he’s not playing, watching, or writing about hockey, he enjoys quality time with his wife and daughter or getting out on a golf course for a quick round. Follow @blaizg on BlueSky or X.