Now officially in the Kraken general manager’s chair, Jason Botterill has spent the first half of the non-playing months tinkering with Seattle’s roster—but not overhauling it completely. He acquired forwards Mason Marchment and Freddy Gaudreau, worked some cap voodoo to get Andre Burakovsky’s $27.5 million off the books for only the cost of buying out Joe Veleno at a $796K bargain, and signed veteran defensive defenseman Ryan Lindgren to a four-year, $18 million contract at the opening of free agency.
One thing we heard at Botterill’s “introductory” press conference back in May (I say “introductory” in quotes because Botterill has been with the team since its inaugural season and because that presser doubled as the annual end-of-season “what went wrong?” panel) was that team co-owner and co-chair Samantha Holloway said the organization wants to quickly evolve into a “perennial” playoff contender.
“Everyone at this table is committed to winning,” Holloway said. “Our hockey folks and our staff have worked hard and deserve winning. Our partners and our fans who support us every night deserve winning.”
How does that timeline look? Do the Kraken realistically expect to be back in the postseason in 2025-26? Or are we looking at two or three years down the line?
I also asked Botterill, when we interviewed him for the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, what his goals are for next season.
“To me, it’s just building a culture,” Botterill said. “It’s building a team that our fans know every day what’s going to happen from the production and just the style of play. I think we’re in an industry that focuses on end results. Right now, where we’re at, we can’t focus on end results. [New head coach Lane Lambert has] talked about getting better every day, and that’s what we have to do. I think we have a team right now that’s ready to compete for a playoff spot at the end of the year, but we have some steps that we certainly have to take.”
When I asked former GM Ron Francis that same question at the end-of-year presser following the team’s second season—when the Kraken came up a game short of the Western Conference Final—he was more specific and stated that he wanted the team to make the playoffs again in 2023-24. But the Kraken came up well short of that goal, and now—two head coaches and a front-office shuffle later—the franchise is still trying to recapture the lightning it bottled during the 2022-23 season.
So have the Kraken done enough this offseason to get back into the playoffs? I’m considering that question thanks to some data pulled by John Barr (who will also chime in on this article; we’ll make it clear when it’s him talking and not me).
The changes so far
Darren: On the whole, I like the moves Botterill has made to this point. I do believe improved structure under Lambert will be a better fit than the free-wheeling approach of Dan Bylsma, which calls for more star power than the Kraken had last season.
I also think the three acquired players all bring elements that will make the team better in the specific areas the front office wants to improve—being generally harder to play against—and in varying ways, they fit the mold of players who can help Seattle both get to the slot area in the offensive zone and protect the slot in the defensive zone. Those are good things.
Marchment and Gaudreau also bring some scoring ability, with Marchment notching 22 goals and 25 assists in an injury-shortened 2024-25 season (62 games), while Gaudreau had 18 goals and 19 assists playing up and down the lineup in Minnesota.
Are those adds, plus the shutdown talents of Lindgren, enough to get Seattle back in playoff contention? My gut says no.
John: I’ve shared some analysis before that suggests teams should aim for a positive goal differential if they want a solid shot at making the playoffs. I use a metric I call adjusted goal differential, which I define as: goals for minus empty-net goals for minus goals against minus empty-net goals against. More simply, it’s goal differential but without empty-netters.
Historically, teams that finish a season with an adjusted goal differential between plus-one and plus-five make the playoffs about 50 percent of the time. Not surprisingly, the odds improve as that number gets higher. For example, teams with an adjusted goal differential between plus-11 and plus-20 make the playoffs roughly 94 percent of the time.
Last season, the Kraken finished with a minus-11 adjusted goal differential, which historically gives a team just about a 10 percent chance of making the playoffs. To even be in the conversation for a playoff spot, they’ll need to find a way to improve that differential by around 12 goals.
Forecasting goals against is tricky, so for the sake of this exercise, we’re going to focus on the “goals for” side of the equation and assume the defense performs similarly to last season (I know, there is hope the team will improve in its own end next season). Let’s take a look at how this offseason’s roster changes might help close that gap.
This is obviously a simplified look at how the major roster changes could impact goal scoring, but on paper, the team has lost two goals from last season. We could also factor in the potential boost from a full season of Kaapo Kakko or the possibility of Jani Nyman and Berkly Catton cracking the lineup this fall. But to keep things conservative, let’s assume the offseason moves didn’t significantly move the needle on goal production.
Darren: That doesn’t look all that encouraging. I do think Shane Wright could be a big producer this season, and Matty Beniers was better in the second half with Kakko on his wing, so there’s a chance the team gets an uptick in scoring from those two as well. But I agree—no offseason acquisition has pushed the team over the hump of playoff contention.
Can the Kraken still improve this offseason?
Darren: At this stage, I’m still wondering if the Kraken are done for the offseason. My heart says they’re not done, and I’m still holding out hope they’ll swing a big move before training camp, but my brain says they’re going to get into the season and see what they have. I hate what my brain is telling me on that front, because after seeing John’s breakdown above, I remain convinced they need a top-tier scoring winger to give themselves a sniff of the postseason.
There have been rumors that players like Jordan Kyrou and Jason Robertson could be had (although the Kyrou conversations have likely fizzled now that Kyrou’s full no-movement clause has kicked in), and either of those guys could bring enough improvement to the top six to make the Kraken competitive.
John: As much as I’d love for the Kraken to add a 30-plus goal scorer, just about every team in the league would jump at the chance to get a guy like Kyrou or Robertson. So, in my opinion, it’s not realistic to expect a move like that, simply because there would be a ton of competition to land one of those players. Plus, bringing in someone at that level would likely cost you one of your better NHL players, so the net impact might not be as big as it seems. I think it’s much more likely the team adds a depth winger as insurance in case Jani Nyman or Berkly Catton aren’t quite ready to make the jump.
Darren: Yeah, this is back to the heart-versus-brain argument. Again, my heart tells me they should do something like that, but my brain knows better.
What say you, folks? Are they done and willing to (likely) miss the playoffs again—perhaps to give themselves a chance to win the draft lottery and generational talent Gavin McKenna? Or is there a big swing on the horizon?
This is not a playoff team and management knows it. It is between the lines in Botterill’s answer to you. They know they are, realistically, not making the playoffs for at least the next two years and just trying not to lose too much fan interest in the meantime. Hence the season ticket price reduction and freeze until 2027 and so on. There is an outside chance if a LOT of things break right, but you could say that about literally every other team in the league except maybe Chicago and San Jose.
Let’s put it this way — is there a single team in the league that does NOT have at least one player who is clearly better than everyone on the Kraken? Maybe the Islanders. Maybe the Ducks. But probably not. That’s not a good place to start.
Oh and both the Islanders and Ducks have more high-end prospects — i.e. more chance at finding a star player internally in their system.
The “additions” is two players short of the “departures”. Every one of those players who left was a regular, so it seems to me this comparative model needs to have an equivalent number of “players” on both sides of the register. I know this is a conservative take, but all four departures ARE going to be replaced, so I think an “on paper” approach needs to account for that. The fact that two player additions almost completely replaced the goal production of four players is noteworthy.
I think player X (full season Kakko) and player Y (Nyman) can, conservatively, add enough goals to get this team close to a positive goal differential.
Go Kraken!!!
I agree in principle and just showing the two known additions was my way of being conservative. My thought is if Nyman and Catton stick with the team, you can probably pencil in a conservative 10 goals each. If you are relying on Kartye and Mellanson, you can pencil in a conservative 5 each. Kartye is not an “add” but he should play more games if Nyman and Catton don’t stick. I plan to do a bottom’s up forecast (player) later this summer which is where we can really dig into a full year Kakko impact.
Doesn’t any adjusted goal differential analysis need to look at the defensive side, as well? It’s not just about scoring more goals, they need to prevent more, too.
The Kraken were awful under Bylsma last season in terms of expected goals against at 5v5… the decline from Hakstol’s last season to Bylsma’s first is striking; whether you look at Hockey Reference or Natural Stat Trick, the Kraken at 5v5 were abysmal on the defensive side. And if you look at those analytics, the offensive side didn’t even improve from Hakstol in terms of expected goals… the only thing that improved was on-ice shooting percentage, which I don’t think we can credit to Dan.
You could make a strong argument that simply playing a better defensive structure could net an additional 4-5 wins on the season. Probably not a playoff team, but better than what Bylsma put out there. So, playoff team? Probably not. Better team than last season? Probably.
Great point, and this was screaming at me from the article as well. They just totally ignored one of the two components of goal differential. There’s no way they’ll allow Grubauer to have that many starts of .875 sv% again, and the team defense was overall atrocious. However, Larsson and Okeksiak have both lost a step or 2, and I expect that to only get worse. Hopefully Dunn can rebound and Evans can continue to improve.
totally agree but the goals against is much more subjective to forecast which is why I kept it out of the article. I actually tipped my toe in it when I talked about the impact of Gaudreau and Lindgren could have on the penalty kill. TL/DR: If the Kraken PK bumps up to a slightly better than league avg of 80%, that should save them 5.4 goals. The rest of the article: https://soundofhockey.com/2025/07/08/kraken-penalty-kill-2025-offseason/
This may come up later but I think it’s a bit timely right now.
Career: GP 121, 42 W, 3.29 GAA, .902 SV%
2024/2025: GP 54, 23 W, 3.10 GAA, .903 SV%
Career: GP 126, 49 W, 2.76 GAA, .906 SV%
2024/2025: GP 57, W 27, 2.75 GAA, .906 SV%
Both these goalies have five year contracts beginning next season. The first one is Lukas Dostal of Anaheim and the second is Joey. In addition to these numbers, last season Daccord’s 0.348 GSAx/60 edged out Dostal’s 0.281.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more direct comp than this one; however, Dostal – who signed last week – has a $6.5m AAV as opposed to Joey’s $5m AAV.
I think the idea that Francis should have waited for Daccord to “prove it” before extending him was a reasonable take, but it would likely have proved costly. Additionally, the idea that the contract should have been a million less and a year less seemed – to me – at the time, a bit far fetched. Now, it just seems preposterous.
As much as it’s easy to hate on some contracts, I think folks forget about the “good” ones sometimes.
Hey Great Point Daryl.
Upside could come from a Wright/Nyman/Catton explosion combining for 90+ goals. But given that the team hired a 60 year old defensive coach who’s more likely to play veterans the odds are extremely long that such a leap will occur… this year. Roster is still too full of marginal vets, clogging up minutes that ought to be used for the kids.
Even if more young players do get real opportunities it will be a bumpy ride, so no playoffs this year. But that doesn’t mean the year is wasted and portends good things in another year or two.
Botterill still has work to do clearing out the roster and should be selling while there’s little competition since only Pittsburgh is a clear tanker right now.
I think the idea is that the focus on having better defense will increase the goal differential in our favor, in spite of not having any clear top-tier offensive talent. On paper that makes sense – it’s probably easier for a team with less scoring talent to make the playoffs if they focus on their defense, and counter on offense when they can. Will it work? I don’t think so; we will likely take a step back on offense with the renewed focus on defense, but I see the philosophy. I don’t know that it’s a long-term solution, but it’s very similar to how teams like LA, FLA, and to a lesser extent, OTT, are built. It’s more a question of having players that fit this style where a less rigid system would be more about adapting to the players strengths. I know this though – our defense can’t be worse than it was last season, where every full-time player besides Matty Beniers finished with a negative defensive rating. That can’t happen again if we plan on winning anything, and that’s what they’ve tried to address this off-season.
Squeaking into the playoffs would be doom for the Kraken. O’Brian was a great pick , but they need another high draft pick next year to build a base to contend. I see nothing in the system that looks like an elite player beyond O’Brien – Catton is a massive question mark imho, so let’s not push Botterill to do something stupid like mortgage our future for a best-case limp into playoffs, first round exit, 20th draft pick.
Interesting take, what is the basis for your opinion? Are you a scout? Every analysis I’ve seen has Catton as the Kraken’s best prospect by far, even after drafting O’Brien.
We’ve had 4 years of high picks. Wanting the team to suck in hopes that this year will be the year you get a guy is foolish. Literally no one is adocating mortgaging the future:
I appreciate the conservative and sound analysis the article proposes. To be less conservative consider this: GF can be affected by getting better scoring chances in the slot. If GMJB is right and Marchment and Gaudreau can bring the sandpaper and increase net front chances, there might be improvement across the lineup. Maybe +10 goals?
Lambert made comments about how he will address the power play and find some success. If they could move up from 23rd in the league with less than 19% efficiency to top twenty with 21% efficiency that could lead to +6 goals?
OTL is a perennial problem for the Kraken, but adding Gaudreau could make a difference? +2 goals?
Although this article didn’t look at GA, I have reason to be optimistic there too. With Murray providing competition at backup, the team won’t be reliant on Grubauer, worst goalie in the league for help on back to backs if he’s showing his weaknesses. Let’s hope that’s a reduction in GA by -5.
An optimists outlook could argue Seattle’s goal differential could improve by 23 to a net +12.
Record in games ending after regulation by year:
24-25 7-6
23-24 6-13
22-23 9-8
21-22 4-6
To me that looks like a bunch of coin flips and a single bad year, not a “perennial problem.”
I think everything is set up for a massive retool, using the trading deadline and next season’s free agency, to become regular playoff contenders AFTER this season. If you look at the contract situation, there are a ton of expansion-draft-era contracts expiring over the next two years. There’s gonna be a lot of change over the next 18 months.
Yes but the Kraken have to replace the production of the players with those expiring contracts in order to be contenders — Schwartz, Eberle, McCann, Dunn, Marchment, Kaako, and Tolvanen all expire in 1-2 years. That’s a huge task, and one that they can’t be counted on to fill internally. Plus, it’ll be much tougher to fill via FA with everyone having cap space and Seattle maybe being a less appealing place for top FA to sign.
Paul – I’m obviously not sure how Botterill is going to approach things but I think the “plan” may be more of a “rolling” retool rather than a massive one. I think some of the expiring veterans may be moved ahead of the trade deadline such as Schwartz, Marchment and Oleksiak depending on where the team is. I also think they already have assets (players, picks, prospects) to add something along the line of what Darren was talking about – a Robertson. It may just be a matter of semantics, but with a No.1 goalie in place, the backend locked up and the lineup down the middle set, I think the growth of young players and upgrades on the wing are going to help move the team into playoff contention and then, tinkering on the backend and further development are going to be the drivers of regular playoff contention. I think that process is “the plan” and I think it’s going to take a few seasons to fully develop.
I agree, the team is going to change a lot between now and season after next, I think it just might be mostly around the edges and a bit in stages.
But then again, if Jeff (below) is correct, I could see a massive fire sale.
Yep almost like RF designed it this way from the start. People don’t give him enough credit for engineering the contracts to allow turnover.
This team looks primed to be pretty bad. I think there could be upside with GA but the offense is all downside. The new additions will not score at last year’s rate as those numbers came with much better supporting casts. I expect our GF to drop. Defensive system and limited creativity. It would take a statistical anomaly with shooting percentage to go up. This team may be very hard to watch. Not trying to criticize management, that’s just what it looks like this morning.
If you’re looking at this roster and thinking it’s going to be worse than last year and “pretty bad”, it might be worth digging into learning more. John’s conservative numbers leave out the scoring of the backfill players like Nyman and potentially cartoon who will almost certainly contribute 10 goals combined.
Love this type of reply. I didn’t write a book so I must not know enough. Opinions that don’t match your own aren’t necessarily based ignorance.
Disagree, no need to insult. Good Lord, I put the not criticizing management comment so the Ron worshippers wouldn’t get defensive.
I get your point… but we heard the same thing about Stephenson before last season and even without Mark Stone he still managed to put up almost exactly the same numbers here in Seattle as he did the year before in Vegas. I’m not convinced Marchment falls off a cliff without Seguin or Duchene passing him the puck.
Gaudreau on the other hand… in Minnesota he was playing a third line role and here he’s almost certainly going to be more of a “fourth line” pivot. I put fourth line in quotes because I’m wondering if there’s going to be a pretty tight spread with the 5v5 minutes. If so, I’m curious how the change in matchups could affect his scoring.
I don’t disagree with the take, I just think it’s overly pessimistic. I also think I tend to be overly optimistic.
Awful lot of doom and gloom predicting out there. It all may turn out to be true. I say give the team till Thanksgiving to see how the new season looks like it is playing out. Maybe just maybe we will all be pleasantly surprised.
Go Kraken!!!
This is the house that Ron built.
Interesting set of takes. It seems that as season 5 dawns, quite a number of posters along with the SOH writers just don’t see a way forward to consistent playoff competitiveness and a sense of weariness has replaced the former sense of optimism. As I have said, that competitiveness starts in a few years, only when Catton and O’Brien are firmly on the roster and Wright is a consistent 30 goal man plus at least two of the D prospects (take your pick) makes the NHL roster, at least one of the W prospects has become an NHL scorer, Kokko is a main G figure on the team, Grubuaer is selling pretzels back home, and this season’s top 3 draft pick is ready for his first or second NHL season.
Oh and Francis is pensioned off and a top-notch GM (the next Bill Zito) and coach (the next Kris Knoblauch) are brought onboard. Love to see them reach for a Mark Hunter type. Something, anything, that is not basic vanilla but comes with fire and an unrelenting desire to win. Pay him a truckload and hire Mike Grier northward. Bring in executive firebrands of all stripes, if nothing else for the amusement factor because the team isn’t. I wonder how long Sam Holloway’s fuse will be if this season goes pretty much the way all the posters above have indicated. This is one reason I suggested, financials be damned, to buy out Grubauer, and let Kokko or Murray run with the backup role. Just to show that mediocrity is unacceptable.
Excellent point on Grubauer. After the Burakovsky deal, Botterill was flying high up until the news they weren’t buying out Grubauer came out. All the forward momentum slammed into a wall and a sense of dread now pervades the team. Trying to play cute that it will help the tank is avoiding the real downside: There’s no accountability, supposedly one of the things Lambert wants to instill, until this is rectified be it this year or next or the year after. Just a terrible message.
…a sense of dread now pervades the team?
If you’re counting on Grubauer it does
No dread at all on the team. It’s stupid to have four years of cap penalty when you don’t need to and the team went out and got a decent hedge option from a pretty shit goalie market. You’d be less angry if you were living in reality.
Indeed this is the house Ron intelligently built through the draft. There’s a reason all the expansion draft players expire in a two year window. The intent was always to build from the beginning but we’ve had some uncanny permanent injury luck that prevented that (Donskoi, Gru, Dunn and Bura). People love to bitch but have a hard time putting their emotions away and evaluating holistically.
You mentioned ignoring the financials (cap hits) but the revenue could tell an even harsher story. Per your scenario above, this team could be BAD for the next 2-3 seasons, add that to the previous two seasons and you’d have 4-5 consecutive losing seasons. If you want to know what that could look like, take a look at the SJS. They used to sellout every season, but have had losing seasons every year since 2019/20, and attendance declined to ~ 80% of capacity in 2023/24. If something similar happens here, that would be an attendance decline of ~ 3,400 per game or ~ $20mm decline in annual revenue. Yet another reason for Sam Holloway’s fuse to be short.
Offemsively, we are in trouble. I any one thinks Jared is going to continue on his 30+ campaign must be peeing in their hat and the putting back on. I love McCann but aging player get injured more and I think he is past his prime. I that happens then I consider this a rebuilting year and 2 years out of being a contender. However, I am a fan of Seattle hockey since the Totems and I still have hope.
It is nice see all these replies as it shows that there is still excitement about our team. New coach a big plus, I hope. They might play better as a team.
They don’t need to buy Gru out at this time since they are well under the cap and should remain there even if they sign both Kakko and Evans to longer deals on the high side. However, they definitely can’t afford to give him as long a leash this year as last year. If he starts off 3.15 GA they better at least try out Murray in net to see how he does. With a condensed schedule because of the Olympics, teams are going to need more of a 1A/1B approach…we can’t have Joey play the same number of games as last year when we have 17 games in January. Getting at least league average backup goal tending is critical – I am of the opinion that signing Murray could prove to be the best move of the offseason if Gru flounders (which seems to be a safe bet at this point).
I am more optimistic that we can be a bubble team and at least play games that matter later in the year assuming decent health. That said there is a big difference between being a true contender and just making the 1st round. But being a team at least in the hunt on an upward trajectory will go a long way to being able to attract/retain talent. They also seemed to bring in more character guys into the locker room this year, which will go a long way – Montour seemed to be a big add in that regard last year.
I think with more ice time (~17min) Wright will make big strides in his sophomore season. I dont know if fans appreciate his speed and shot – he had way more 20mph bursts than Stephenson and Matty with way less ice time. With more confidence and the right line pairing I am optimistic he breaks out this year. I am skeptical of Catton sticking with the team beyond some games to start the season because the front office seems to want to protect the youth (see Wright vs Stephenson ice time last year). Seems more likely that Nyman or some other AHL prospect makes the leap and sticks with the team relatively early in the season, especially if there is an injury.
Reasons to expect more Goals For this season:
1) a full season of Kaapo Kakko, Jordan Eberle, and Jani Nyman
2) no way is Lambert going to give Jared McCann as little ice time as Bylsma did
3) second-half of last season Chandler Stephenson for the whole season
4) Mason Marchment
5) Matty Beniers appears to have found his scoring touch
Reasons to expect fewer Goals For this season:
1) Lane Lambert coaches low-event hockey
2) Shane Wright is going to hit a production wall when he is asked to play defense again
3) no more Oliver Bjorkstrand
4) less focus on transition means less Monty Magic
5) Jaden Schwartz can’t realistically have two seasons in a row like the last one, can he?
Reasons to expect more Goals Against this season:
1) their best defensemen are another year older
2) no more Yani Gourde or Brandon Tanev
3) uh… really that’s it
Reasons to expect fewer Goals Against this season:
1) Lane Lambert coaches low-event–and great defensive–hockey
2) Colin Zulianello coaching Philip Grubauer and Joey Daccord in the NHL
3) their best defensemen seem to love playing the kind of old-school responsible game that Lambert coaches
4) Freddy Gaudreau makes up for the loss of Gourde and Tanev by himself (PK center AND right winger)
5) Ryan Lindgren has had an off-season to recover from his injuries and is incredible when healthy
The cool thing that most people are missing is the part where our youth and prospects “age in” and the rest of the league “ages out”, and we start to take over. I’m excited for this year, and think we’re not as far off of a playoff spot as some think, especially if Catton & Nyman have great summers and can catch fire early and get that mojo with some of our core players. I didn’t see the 2nd Kraken season coming, but I lived it, and it was real and we could have won that damn series vs. Dallas. Sometimes it just takes some belief (the players mostly), and execution/lightning in a bottle. Granted, it could all blow up, but maybe our new coach & the realization of our noobs & vets together can take us to the next level. Let’s go, y’all.