With Kraken health improving, difficult lineup and roster decisions loom

[Knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood.] At the risk of jinxing them, the Seattle Kraken seem to be getting healthier with every passing day.

Jaden Schwartz returned to the lineup Saturday in Carolina after missing 19 games with a lower-body injury. His return coincided with Chandler Stephenson exiting and being designated as a non-roster player due to the birth of his third child. Stephenson missed two games and is expected to return Wednesday when the Kraken visit the New Jersey Devils. On Monday, captain Jordan Eberle returned from a two-game absence related to an upper-body injury.

Meanwhile, defenseman Brandon Montour—who has been out with a Mason Marchment-related hand injury since Dec. 16—has returned to practice and skated with the team again on Tuesday. Based on this and his original timeline, Montour could be nearing a return within the next few games.

If nobody else gets sick or injured in the next two contests, difficult decisions will have to be made by the Kraken brass as they decide who to scratch—and eventually who to send down to the Coachella Valley Firebirds—to make room for returning regulars.

The immediate conundrum – who to scratch against the Devils?

Stephenson will almost certainly slot back into his second-line center role Wednesday. Without Stephenson, the forward lines for a 4-2 win at the New York Rangers on Monday looked like this:

Kaapo Kakko // Matty Beniers // Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz // Freddy Gaudreau // Eeli Tolvanen
Berkly Catton // Shane Wright // Jared McCann
Jacob Melanson // Ben Meyers // Ryan Winterton

With Stephenson back, who do you scratch if you’re Lane Lambert? Even that is a tough question to answer because the fourth line of Melanson/Meyers/Winterton has been the lynchpin for this team’s turnaround over the last month. But I would be surprised to see any player from the top three lines come out, especially after all three of those lines contributed to the comeback win at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

Entering a back-to-back with travel against the Devils and Bruins, Lambert was unsurprisingly vague on his plans when asked about this so-called “good problem” by Bob Condor on Tuesday in New Jersey. “You take it one [game] at a time, so we’ll see where we’re at and set our lineup for tomorrow and deal with the Boston game when that comes. But certainly, there are some healthy bodies, and we have some numbers and some people that maybe we can put in some fresh legs.”

If it were my decision, I’d probably put Stephenson at 2C, Gaudreau at 4C, and scratch Meyers—only because that feels like the least disruptive option. My second choice would be to move Gaudreau to fourth-line wing and scratch Winterton.

I don’t particularly like either option, but something will have to give.

What happens when Montour returns?

The bigger question—and again, this is all mooted if somebody gets sick or injured in the next couple of days—is what happens when Montour returns. The Kraken are currently at their 23-man roster limit, and that doesn’t include goaltender Matt Murray, who is still on injured reserve.

Once Montour is activated, Seattle will have to make a corresponding move. There are only three players who can be sent to the Coachella Valley Firebirds without being exposed to waivers: Wright, Winterton, and Melanson. Any other candidates—like Kartye, Meyers, Cale Fleury, or even Josh Mahura (yes, I think Mahura could be a candidate)—would have to be exposed to a claim from another team before they could be sent to the AHL. One could imagine a world in which any of those waivers-eligible players gets snatched up by a banged-up team looking for depth.

My preference would be for the Kraken to make a trade or two to clear out their multiple logjams of middle-to-bottom-six forwards and depth defensemen. But if that doesn’t happen, then my pick—and I really hate this call—would be to send Winterton to CV with the expectation that he comes back as soon as a spot opens up.

If that happens (or if Melanson gets sent down), the reasoning surely wouldn’t be because the Kraken front office thinks the player deserves a demotion. Instead, it would be done purely from an asset-management perspective. I do think this is the right approach, because the second the Kraken lose one of their depth guys to waivers, another player will get hurt, and they’ll be kicking themselves for losing a useful replacement.

This is also the exact reason that waivers exist; to protect the more veteran players from being sent haphazardly to the AHL.

The curious case of Matt Murray

Adding another curious wrinkle to all this is the fact that the Kraken still have a third goalie waiting in the wings in Matt Murray. Murray has been on injured reserve since coming up lame against the San Jose Sharks way back on Nov. 15. He’s been practicing in full for quite some time now and is being slow-played by the Kraken, who are no doubt hesitant to activate him and use up a scarce roster spot.

At some point, they’ll have no choice but to activate Murray because according to the collective bargaining agreement, once a player is healthy enough to play, he must come off IR.

One has to wonder whether Murray gets sent to CV for a conditioning stint, which could buy a little more time before another roster decision has to be made. Murray would have to agree to such a loan, however, and may not want to go to the minors.

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These things have had a way of working themselves out so far this season. Every time Seattle has appeared to be getting healthy, somebody else has gone down with yet another injury, and the decisions have made themselves.

But if that doesn’t happen this time, and everyone ends up available at once, how would you solve these conundrums?