Here we go! Things do seem to be heating up around the NHL as we barrel toward the NHL Trade Deadline, which hits at 12 p.m. Pacific on Friday. So far, it’s been mostly fringe, secondary, and tertiary players who have moved, with a few notable names like Tyler Myers (Vancouver to Dallas), MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary to Utah), Sam Girard (Colorado to Pittsburgh), and Conor Garland (Vancouver to Columbus) already being dealt.
Perhaps the biggest deal so far came late Thursday when the Anaheim Ducks, one of the teams Seattle is chasing, landed veteran defenseman John Carlson from the Washington Capitals.
The returns for the players that have moved have not been astronomical, indicating that this is truly a “buyers’ market.” So, we could see some more fireworks before midday on Friday.
Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Kraken front, so the team’s players are playing it cool, trying not to pay too much attention to the few rumors that have bubbled up around the club.
“Obviously, we’ve put ourselves in a spot where we have an opportunity to make the playoffs and make a run here,” captain Jordan Eberle said. “Whether that means we add or we stick with the group, I don’t know, those decisions are above me. But at this moment in time, I’m proud of the way that this group has battled to get ourselves an opportunity to hopefully get in.”
Control what you can control
It’s interesting to feel the palpable difference in mood between a team battling for the playoffs (like this season’s group and the 2022-23 team) compared with the three seasons when the Kraken have been obvious sellers on the eve of the deadline. Even after a stinging loss to the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, the players don’t expect the front office to be selling off veterans on expiring contracts Friday.
“We’ve been here the last couple years where we’ve kind of been selling off guys, and the first year, right? The vibes are not good [in that situation],” Eberle said. “You’re saying bye to friends, saying bye to teammates. It’s always not a fun situation. That’s why at the end of the day, you want to try and play meaningful games all the way to the end.”
Eberle, by the way, is one of four players—along with Eeli Tolvanen, Jamie Oleksiak, and Jaden Schwartz—on expiring contracts. I do not expect to see those players moved simply to collect draft picks like we’ve seen the past two seasons. If any of them are dealt, it would likely be because general manager Jason Botterill receives an offer he can’t refuse and believes the team can still make the playoffs without that player.
Tolvanen echoed Eberle’s sentiments, despite his own contract situation.
“What happens happens. You can’t really focus on that,” Tolvanen said. “I mean, it can be December when you get traded like Kaapo [Kakko] did, or it can be tomorrow, or you can stay. I don’t really care about that.”
While I’ve gotten no indication that Tolvanen is re-signing, my intuition tells me he’ll stick around beyond this season. As Tolvanen himself said, “We’ll see what happens.”
Meanwhile, coach Lane Lambert is likely ready to move past the deadline and eliminate any related distractions for his group.
“There’s always trepidation, I guess, with guys, and it’s not an easy time of the year,” Lambert said. “Most of them, not all of them, but most of them have been through it, a lot of them on multiple occasions. So the bottom line is, in anything—it doesn’t matter if it’s hockey or life—it’s you can control what you can control. And if there’s rumors or there’s outside noise, you’ve just got to not listen to it, because a lot of times that’s exactly what it is, just rumors and outside noise.”
When I asked Lambert if he’s hoping to see moves from the front office, he said there are things about the team that he really likes and would be hesitant to see disrupted. Still, there’s no doubt he’d welcome the addition of a player or two who can put the puck in the net.
“I’ve been on teams in the past where it did kind of mess it up a little bit, but I’ve also been on teams where it helped. So, you just have to make sure that you do your homework, do your research, know what you’re doing and know what you need.”
What happened against St. Louis on Thursday?
With every point in the standings feeling critical right now, it was disappointing to see the Kraken follow up their impressive 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday with a 3-2 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday—their second defeat against the underperforming Blues in just eight days.
Eberle gave his take on how that happened, crediting the Blues as a team that’s better than its record indicates.
“I thought we started the game really well, obviously opened the scoring, and then we died off in the first period a little bit. They obviously tied it up. I thought our second period was great. I thought we created some chances, we had opportunities. Third period, we gave up one, and then we were just chasing.”
Added Lambert: “The game for me, could have went either way. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of good plays, and we had some opportunities but failed to capitalize on them. There was a lot of things about that game that I really liked.”
Los Angeles won Thursday night, so now the Kings and Sharks are both within three points of the Kraken, who remain in the final wild-card spot. Getting two points against the Blues would have pushed Seattle back ahead of Edmonton for third place in the Pacific Division.
Tolvanen recalls Olympics
This was my first time chatting with Tolvanen since he and countryman Kaapo Kakko returned from the Olympics in Milan with bronze medals.
Like we heard from Grubauer last week, the event was clearly memorable for Tolvanen.
“I think the whole experience was unbelievable,” Tolvanen said. “The city of Milan was unreal, great weather, just the history behind the city, seeing all the athletes at the village walking around, hockey players, different athletes. It was unbelievable.”
He said the Finnish team stayed in the Olympic Village and spent plenty of time together biking around the city and hanging out in the team lounge.
Tolvanen spoke proudly about winning bronze but admitted he hasn’t yet found a permanent home for the medal. For now, it’s sitting in his closet, though he plans to eventually create a display featuring the medal and his jersey from the tournament.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
I’ve gone back and forth in my head on how I think the Kraken should approach the deadline as it relates to the UFA’s. I think I’m still in the camp of keeping them and pushing for the playoffs unless someone is willing to overpay and offer first round picks. This team needs talent, it needs its youngest players to develop, and it needs to be a favorable destination for free agents.
I just don’t think the benefit of adding more 2nd and 3rd round picks to tank the season at this point is going to outweigh the benefit of keeping excitement around the team, and getting our youngest players playoff experience. I’d rather watch this team continue to play meaningful hockey.
It’s not a tank season if we ship off the guys we have no intention of keeping next season, it’s smart asset management. The roster is too full in the middle anyway at this stage, some thinning in that area needs to be done in order for us to become a better team, I see absolutely no reason not to get a second round pick for something that needs and will be done anyway.
It’s 100% tanking if the guys you’re going to bring up to fill those spots aren’t better than what you have. You can call it a “soft tank”, but for the purposes of the rest of this season you’re making this team worse, not better. I agree that the plan should only be to bring a couple of those guys back next year, and through free agency and promoting we’ll try to find out how to fill in those spots. But right now there isn’t a guy in CV that looks like a surefire top 9 forward next year, and how attractive of a FA destination are we going to be if we once again are selling off players and finishing far outside of the playoffs?
The idea of this team in this situation unloading players for the reasons you state is, I believe, terriblysimplistic. Of course, that’s also Luszczyszyn and Gentille’s take on the Athletic. While I get this approach to building a team, it’s hard to believe the Kraken would be best serving the interests of the team by “throwing in the towel” while in the thick of a playoff race they have a legit shot at succeeding in… and you don’t need to explain the “long-term” angle or the futility of their playoff performance expectations – I get it, it’s really not that complicated.
By the way… am I wrong to assume you view the Eberle extension as another incompetent move by a terrible front office?
…I see you like the Eberle deal. I couldn’t agree more with your take on the Captain.
On paper, yes, but the perception of being a “seller” at the deadline can be very bad for morale even if the moves are technically “smart asset management”. A certain Seattle baseball team learned a hard lesson from this in 2021…
Ebs extended 2x 5.5.
I feel that’s a good contract for us it’s not too long. Gives us another two years to evaluate who’s our next captain.
Agree with those of you that like the Eberle two year extension!
Go Kraken!!!
This team is not good enough to stay put and not trade a couple of draft picks or some Firebirds.. Eli is a fringe player and plays good penalty kill could draw a young talent that could step in. We do not have the scoring to advance past the first round if we get lucky to make the playoffs, that is. I fear one injury will also tear up the chances to make the playoffs as well. I think the Kraken management is scared to gamble on their ability to make a good trade . Are they really going keep all their UFA’s, really?
Ryden Evers and Bobby McMann! Take that, announcers.
This team truly just wants to be mediocre, wasted draft picks for basically just another Kartye who we already had and gave away. We don’t sell a vet even though we brought a new middling body into an already full roster. By my count we basically just lost at least two second round picks, one we gave away and the one we didn’t get, for basically nothing.
Who cares about the future when we’re staring down a big playoff run. Go Kraken
Odds are they won’t even get any playoff run at all. They didn’t meaningfully improve and they are only in the playoffs by .007 of points percentage, above a team that has Macklin Celebrini on it — you know, an actual great player.
McMann would improve the team a little if they sat Stephenson or Gaudreau for him. But of course they’ll probably sit Catton because the Kraken’s theory of player development is to call up young guys and then have them sit in the press box.
Macklin is one hell of a player I do agree. That kid, by himself, gives the Sharks direction and momentum. And he is by no means the only talented kid they have.
Playoffs or no playoffs, this Kraken team, as a hockey team, is so bland and tepid they practically disappear into the rink advertisements. But after 5 years… it’s clear that’s how the FO likes them.
Signing McMann is so on the nose.
Lambert having coached in Toronto last season should have good idea just what he’s getting in McMann.
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not?
It means he will be a good System Guy.
(unlike Marchment)
League-wide, I’d say this whole deadline was pretty much a bust. So many factors likely contributed – the playoff cap, the loss of double-retention, the higher regular-season cap, and the over-proliferation of no-trade clauses all appear to have stifled the possibility of anything really impactful.
I’m glad Seattle didn’t get desperate and overpay for a marginal or overage player and no one else got a player that I wish Seattle could have gotten.
And I kind of like the move for McMann – they used the picks they got from Columbus when they unloaded Marchment and ended up with a less expensive player that has better numbers. Overall a low risk move that has more upside than down, even if only temporary.
Solid piece. It really captures the strange “in-between” feeling slope teams have at the deadline when they’re still in the playoff hunt.
The NHL trade deadline is a crucial time for the Seattle Kraken. The team needs to make strategic decisions to ensure future growth and success. xlope game
Ryden Evers and Bobby McMann! great feeling for stickman hook