Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. The Kraken went 1-3-0 over the last week, with two of those losses standing out as some of the worst games the team has ever played—a pair of 6-2 defeats in Columbus and Detroit. In classic 2024-25 Kraken fashion, it was one disastrous period in each game that sealed their fate. They surrendered four goals in the second period against Columbus and another four in the first period against Detroit. In those stretches, the Kraken looked out of sync, outclassed, and outcoached, resembling a 90’s expansion team.
You could also include the first period of the game against the Buffalo Sabres, where they allowed two goals and were outshot 15-7. While not quite as disastrous as the other two games, it was still a rough period. I hate to be so harsh, but those three periods stand out as some of the worst hockey this team has played all season.
To their credit, and consistent with what we have seen from the Kraken all year, they didn’t quit and battled through the rest of each game. However, in the cases of Columbus and Detroit, it was too little, too late. Certainly, injuries have taken a toll on this team. You might also excuse some of the sluggishness in the Detroit game as it was the second game of a back-to-back. But the issues run deeper than that.
Missing Yanni Gourde
I mentioned it last week, but this team really misses Yanni Gourde. While I don’t know how vocal he is in the locker room, his on-ice energy and effort often seem to inspire the team. The Gourde line has consistently set the tone, and in his absence, that spark has been missing.
In the last three games he played, the Kraken went 2-0-1, with his line providing a jumpstart when the team needed it most. Gourde also seems to deliver crucial energy boosts in pivotal moments. Unfortunately, while he’s eligible to return from injured reserve, he is not with the team on this road trip, and his return remains uncertain.
All eyes on the trade deadline
While I’ll continue rooting for the Kraken for every remaining second of the season, it’s hard to ignore the looming trade deadline on March 7. It seems likely that both Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde will be traded. Those are the obvious names, but could there be others?
I’ve loved Jaden Schwartz’s play this year. He’s been one of the team’s bright spots and could be an appealing trade target for a contender. With a Stanley Cup win (Blues, 2019) under his belt and one year remaining on his contract at $5.5 million, Schwartz could fetch a solid return if the Kraken decide to move him.
Another player that could be appealing for playoff teams is Oliver Bjorkstrand. He is tied for first on the team with 13 goals and is the type of depth scoring that could be attractive to teams that think they are Stanley Cup contenders. The thought of Oliver not being on this team pains me, but you’ve got to consider just about anything at this point, and for the right price, no one is untouchable.
The bigger question is what the Kraken are looking for in return. They had two huge drafts in 2022 and 2023, picking up nine first- or second-round selections, and seem to have had another solid draft in 2024. Do they want to stockpile more draft picks, or are they targeting younger players on the cusp of breaking into the NHL?
I’ve been championing a deal for Nick Robertson since the beginning of the season. Toronto might be a logical landing spot for Yanni Gourde, and a deal involving Robertson could make sense for both sides.
While trades will start to pick up in late January and early February, most of the action will likely happen closer to the trade deadline in March. Stay tuned—this next stretch could shape the Kraken’s future.
Other musings
- Kaapo Kakko appears to be part of the long-term solution in Seattle. He has five points in his last five games, including two goals on Saturday in Buffalo. Notably, he set a franchise record by scoring the fastest two goals by a single player in Kraken history, just 1:40 apart.
THAT WAS FAST 😳
Kaapo Kakko finds the back of the net twice in 1:40! pic.twitter.com/s1T1o0tNUw
— NHL (@NHL) January 11, 2025
- Kakko remains the only Kraken player named to a 4 Nations Face-off roster. There’s an outside chance that Eeli Tolvanen could join Team Finland as an injury replacement. Erik Haula has been named to the Finnish roster but hasn’t played for the Devils since Jan. 4 due to a sprained ankle.
- The Kraken have allowed the first goal in each of their last five games, going 1-4-0 in that stretch. This continues a season-long trend, as they are 9-19-0 when conceding the opening goal.
- Despite being one of the league’s most disciplined teams this season, averaging just 2.9 penalties per game, the Kraken committed 13 penalties over the weekend. Three of Detroit’s six goals in their matchup came on the power play.
- After clearing waivers last week, Daniel Sprong made an immediate impact for Coachella Valley, scoring three goals and adding an assist in his first two games. Prior to this, he hadn’t played since Dec. 28.
- In case you missed it, check out KHN’s feature on Oliver Bjorkstrand. For more great content, explore other KHN features here.
- The Utah Hockey Club is implementing a creative initiative to attract more fans to their games, which reminds me of my 2020 pitch for an innovative program to increase attendance at Kraken games. As the saying goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. The second-best time is today.” Dear Kraken, again….please steal this idea!
- Jacob Melanson played his first game since early November for Coachella Valley on Sunday after being sidelined with a long-term injury. A fifth-round pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, Melanson had a strong start to the season, scoring three goals in his first seven games. Earlier in the campaign, there was speculation that he could be one of the first forward call-ups, but the injury set him back. Known for his physicality, Melanson brings an edge to his game that could be a valuable asset for the Kraken when he’s ready to make the jump.
- If you are looking for reasons to be optimistic about the future, listen to the latest episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast where we chatted with Seattle Kraken director of player development, Jeff Tambellini.
- And if you need even more positive energy. Check out this clip from King 5 on this little fan.
Goal of the week
Logan Morrison had nice spin move to get a couple whacks at a puck and eventually put it in the net for Coachella Valley.
MO TIES IT UP 1-1 pic.twitter.com/qXN4bSJyLN
— Coachella Valley Firebirds (@Firebirds) January 12, 2025
Players of the week
Berkly Catton (SPO/SEA): The Kraken’s first-round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft had an incredible performance on Saturday, racking up seven points in a single game against the Wenatchee Wild.
Lleyton Roed (CVF/SEA): The undrafted free agent signed by the Kraken last spring continues to impress, tallying two goals and three assists in two games over the weekend. Roed now has 11 points in his last 10 games.
Carson Rehkopf (BRA/SEA): Since returning from the World Juniors, Rehkopf has been on fire, recording six points in just three games.
#SeaKraken prospect Carson Rehkopf scored twice in his return to the Aud on Friday as the @OHLSteelheads defeated the Rangers 5-2 🎥 pic.twitter.com/uOV0ZA6yoG
— Ontario Hockey League (@OHLHockey) January 11, 2025
The week ahead
The Kraken will snap out of this funk eventually, but the road ahead doesn’t get much easier. They’ll face a desperate Pittsburgh Penguins team on Tuesday, followed by a tough matchup against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday to close out the road trip. After that, the Kraken return to Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday to take on the Los Angeles Kings.
While I’m still rooting for wins, what I’d most like to see this week is consistency throughout the games—even if the results don’t go the Kraken’s way.
On a positive note, I’m excited to see the continued progress of Shane Wright, Matty Beniers, and Kaapo Kakko. All three have been playing some of their best hockey of the season, and they look poised to become key parts of the future core of this franchise.
It can’t get any worse… can it?
The podcast episode with Tambellini was fantastic, thanks for the great work.
Do you or Darren have any comments or insight on this supposed meeting between Todd Leiweke and the team in Buffalo?
On 32 Thoughts this morning Friedman clarified that he was not aware of a “meeting” WITH the team, only that Leiweke was at the game. He went to lengths to stress that he wasn’t clear enough on this point over the weekend and he had no knowledge of him actually meeting with the team.
Interesting that he was there though…
He was in Detroit as well. I know the business side of the Kraken had some functions in (at least) Detroit and is probable that Tod was part of that too.
Agree on the Tambellini podcast. I just wish you all had more time to go through every prospect. Did seem like he was looking to Nyman and Kokko as prospects who could see time with the Kraken next year. I am curious what your takeaway was on who is ready for the NHL?
Nice for Leiweke to finally show up. He is supposedly one of the three principal owners but according to Forbes, he is worth less than me, so I wonder if he will actually be taking orders from Sam Holloway. I believe he is team president, but not president of hockey operations.
Besides firing Francis, they need to appoint a president of hockey operations, who will appoint his own GM in time. Two voices are better. I really hope they move on from Francis before the trade deadline to give the new guy a chance to assess the team and then make the right moves.
“It can’t get any worse… can it?”
Yes John, of course it can get worse. It can always get worse… see above.
I said it to my friends before the season started, of all the prospects Seattle has in CV, Melanson looks the most ready to join the big club. Plays a simple physical game and scores greasy goals.
I hope he returns to his early season form and if some forwards are moved out, it might get that shot.
I had a good view of the team bench yesterday in Detroit. The players were frustrated and Disco Dan stays quiet. I’m not sure what it takes to gather their confidence. I didn’t think I’d say this, especially at this point, but is DD the answer?
The tv broadcast caught Coach Dan yelling at the bench multiple times, FWIW.
I actually thought the Kraken started the game well. They managed three controlled entries on their first four attempts and got a shot on net in each one… and then BOOM! Two goals in 11 seconds… and suddenly everything got worse.
“lucky for me” I was at the game yesterday. After they didn’t allow a goal I lean over to the guy next to me and say, better start than yesterday. After detroit scored the two goals, I then leaned over to the women next to me and said, “got’em right where we want them” 😐
My concern is that this roster is a disaster, both in terms of construction and cap, and we’re about to have the guy who put us in this position tasked with fixing it. Seems bad.
One bit of (sort of) good news is that the Kraken are currently in a position to get one of the five players who have separated themselves at the top of the draft (Schaefer, Martone, Hagens, Misa, amd McQueen). If they’re not going to make the playoffs — which seems likely at this time — then being at the bottom of the standings has its advantages.
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting them to be this bad. I thought the free agent signings and Daccord full time would make them a bubble team and a pick in the 10-15 range (which is why I hated the timing of the signings — they badly need top talent, and 10-15 often won’t get that). This team is so much worse than most people expected, which begs the question, why is that the case? Grubauer reverting back to year 1 form, Burky, Beniers and McCann regressing, Eberle injury, Stephenson being even worse than advertised, etc. I guess we’ll have an entire playoffs to discuss what went wrong, but still, it’s crazy to me that this is a bottom 5 team that is very much trying not to be (same with NSH, which is also a confounding situation). I’d be shocked if Francis keeps his job if this keeps up. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Dan is canned after 1 season.
“This team is so much worse than most people expected, which begs the question, why is that the case?”
Since you asked…
I hesitate to wade into these waters because I know how toxic they can be, but before folks start jumping off bridges over how bad the Kraken are, I think there is something to consider.
At the beginning of the season, it seemed a lot of folks thought the Kraken would be a bubble team. Some folks thought in, some folks thought out, but I don’t know of anyone who thought they’d be worse than last year… which is where they are now.
Last Tuesday’s game against New Jersey was Seattle’s 41st game and last Thursday marked the official halfway point of the NHL season. There have been lots of injuries and lots of big changes to incorporate, but those are challenges most organizations face. There is obviously not “one thing” to blame and no one area is excelling either… but we cannot just ignore what is going on in net. I’ve been trying to avoid this, and I know I’ve said I was done talking about him… but it just can’t be ignored any longer.
The numbers are horrendous… we know that. It is now 150 appearances with the Kraken so it’s difficult to simply ignore the validity of such a large sample size. What’s a little more difficult to contextualize is what the effect actually is… so here’s something to consider.
At the midway point – going into the Thursday following the Devils game – the Kraken had just 37 points. That put them nine points out of the wild card and pretty much signaled the end of any playoff hopes. Where did those needed points go? Certainly, there are lots of places to look, but the pair of glasses sitting right on the top of your head is Grubauer. Consider… If Gru had been just “average” in the first half – not above average as Joey has been, but just NHL .500 rather than .306 – the Kraken would have had 44 points last Thursday and been the first team out of a playoff spot… just two points behind Vancouver. That’s just three-and-a-half wins and the difference between 5-12-1 and 9-9-0. I get that the team has been abysmal at times this season and that’s part of why they should be considered a bubble team – but it’s hard to believe it’s merely chance that they’re .565 in front of Joey and .306 in front of Gru. What about run support you may ask. It’s true Grubauer had three games where he surrendered just two goals and got saddled with a loss. It’s also true three of his five wins were in games where he gave up four or more… I’m gonna call that a wash. Joey has actually had more support. The 2.83 they’ve been scoring for him is .25 more per game than the 2.57 Gru has gotten. The 3.62 he’s given up, however, is more than a full goal per game worse than Joey’s 2.47. I’m not buying the run support argument. You can look at any number you want, you can blame the team in front of him all you want, but the reality is getting too stark to explain away.
Since the midway point they’ve played three games – he started two and didn’t finish either.
I have heard Dacord initiates the offense better than most. Perhaps a small part of more Dacord goal support is due to that?
The team lacks elite goal scorers and likely will for some time to come.
Any chance we can dump Stephenson and Gru’s contract? A guy can dream.
I was wondering about Joey’s puck handling as well. It’s only a quarter goal a game, and while that adds up, it doesn’t begin to bridge the gap.
I’ll be absolutely shocked if they don’t buy him out in June.
Seems like we’ve played a number of playoff teams with below-average 2nd string or 3rd string goalies in. So while it would be nice to imagine a pair of average or better goalies for every game, I wonder how often that happens in reality.
Eric Comrie in Winnipeg and Daniil Tarasov in Columbus are both 3-6-1
Jake Allen in New Jersey is 5-7-1
Jeremy Swayman in Boston is 14-15-2
Of the teams in playoff positions right now those are the No.1 or No.2 goalies who are below .500.
I was really hoping to see Stezka get a start while he was up with the team. Just to see if he could handle it. Worst-case scenario would have been he got pulled and Grubauer would have had to come in. But that didn’t happen, so there’s still the question of if Stezka is NHL-ready.
I see the glass as half full. You don’t want to be a fringe playoff team in the NHL. The fact that we resoundingly suck can and should give management the green light to sell hard like they did in year 1. That will benefit us more in the long run than hanging onto expiring contracts until it is too late to unload them. Grubauer’s garbage play is another bonus since whoever is running this team after the season will have an easy decision to buy him out.
The real sink or swim test for the first 5-7 years of this franchise is the development of Beniers and Wright, both of which are trending upward.
I’m not as down on RF as others. Other than the Stephenson signing the rest of the recent moves were pretty good. Signing Daccord looks brilliant, trading for Kakko was an absolute steal, and Montour is well worth the contract. I think it would be a mistake not to give RF and Disco Dan another year.
Right moves matters only in a right direction.
Elephant in the room is this team really misses Eberle. It’s a shame he was injured after being named Captain and getting off to such a great start. On the bright side, the youngsters continue to impress. Evans is 10th in pts on the roster, which unfortunately also speaks to the disappointing performance of some of the veteran forwards. Stephenson (2nd in points, playing in every situation, great in faceoffs, good playmaker) and Montour are proving to be good acquisitions and are probably keeping us in games, as well as providing some much needed veteran stability for the young guys. It will be good to have them in the coming years when more young guys move up. All others are playing well below expectations. McCann doesn’t shoot. Burky looks confused most of the time, and confuses his linemates. Bjorkstrand is mostly invisible. Larsson is almost always out of position, loses battles and coughs up the puck. Turbo is very inconsistent. Karts tries hard but we aren’t seeing the development I think we were all expecting. Ironically, Oleksiak hasn’t looked terrible, likely because he plays with Monty. We need veterans who can play well, but where do we get them? We already have a lot of young prospects, as noted in the article, as well as a healthy stock of picks, so I’m not sure why some think more of either will save us. That’s like rolling dice and literally years of hope and suffering.
Per PHR: Kraken listening to offers on Burakovsky and Bjorkstrand. The Burky part made me laugh considering he is way worse and signed for an additional year. I can’t imagine any team would want him without the Kraken sweetening the deal and retaining a significant portion of his salary. If Bjorkstrand gets traded, next years team will be even worse. Actual contention is maybe 3 years away? Woof.
I wouldn’t frame it exactly that way since this all stems from comments made from Friedman. He said something like “I’ve heard Burakovsky and Bjorkstrand a bit out there” which to me is probably around the same time both guys were healthy scratches. Other teams probably looked at that as an opportunity to get them at discount rate. Burky has also been given every opportunity to turn things around and has done very little to do it. They are will have to package him up with other assets if they are going to trade him. Agree with you on Bjorkstrand….that would suck to see him traded this season. The only thing I will add is that nobody on this team should be untradable…even the young ones.