As Darren Brown explained in our introduction to the offseason, the Seattle Kraken face weighty questions this offseason.
What are the goals for on-ice competitiveness? How does the organization improve its execution once goals are selected? How can the team composition be changed to conform to the team’s goals? How are on-ice performance deficiencies addressed? How does the organization repair trust with the fanbase?
Decisions made on these and other issues this offseason will have significant consequences years into the future.
The Kraken approach the offseason with the assets to make changes
The Seattle Kraken enter the offseason with significant assets. When accounting for likely minor restricted free-agent deals, we can project the team with $76 million of 2026-27 commitments under the 2026-27 salary cap of $104 million. This leaves the team with $28 million in cap space despite relatively few glaring open roster spots.
Even beyond money, the Kraken’s asset stock is robust. (That is not to say those assets might not have been greater had the team charted a different path over the last 12 months, it’s just an existing fact.) The team has three picks in the top 40 of the 2026 NHL Draft and a top-10 prospect pool according to most analysts.
Seattle also has prime-aged, above-average veterans on reasonable, expiring contracts that would appeal to contending teams if made available. Vince Dunn and Jared McCann are the two names that come to mind first and foremost.
Seattle Kraken offseason objectives
From my vantage, the team’s offseason focus should not be on improving (or tanking) the total talent level of the 2026-27 roster—or at least that should not be the primary objective. Ideally, the Kraken would be guided by these five objectives instead:
- Leverage lessons learned to implement front office improvements
- Target external young talent in trades matching the core timeline
- Create lineup opportunities for internal young talent, fostering competition
- Maintain baseline competitiveness to foster culture, development, and medium-term success
- Hold key draft and prospect assets unless inconsistent with the above
Let’s dig into each of these areas. I’ll also sprinkle in a few hypothetical offseason changes, trades, or signings that would, in my view, be indicative of a reasoned and successful offseason.
#1: Leverage lessons learned to implement front office improvements
The first and most essential building block of a successful offseason is the recognition of areas for improvement internally, from the top down. The organization needs to leverage lessons learned during the Ron Francis leadership era and incorporate new strategies and solutions from the team’s postseason review processes.
From the outside, we cannot speak with any authority regarding most deficiencies that may or may not exist within the organization or staffing of the front office.
That said, one evident priority is to identify the on-ice objective—the “direction,” so to speak—and then clearly communicate the objective within the office walls at Kraken Community Iceplex. The team has said as much. In highlighting areas of adjustment within the front office, Kraken general manager Jason Botterill said at his postseason press availability that “the way I operate with my staff is direct communication.” The Kraken will have “clear goals” going forward, Botterill said.
From there, the focus shifts to identifying and acquiring the core group of players necessary to achieve the objectives. That’s easier said than done, of course, but the team won’t have a chance without getting this first step right.
#2: Target external young talent in trades matching the core timeline
Put succinctly, my central offseason objective would be to refresh the forward and defense groups by adding at least one external young player to each group who fits a late-2020s window and brings more aging-curve and development upside to the core.
I considered at least three factors in settling on this core goal.
First was a clear-eyed assessment of the overall quality of the roster. From (good-natured, hopefully) jeers at Sound Of Hockey Fest before last season through an unpopular Olympic break prediction, I never viewed last year’s collection of talent as playoff caliber. A simple turn of the calendar is unlikely to change that fact because the roster remains, on balance, on the backside of the aging curve.
Second, I had to recognize that—despite its overall flaws—the roster does have a few young players who project as pieces of a winning core. These are players who should be strong performers and lynchpins of the team’s relationship with its fans. Matty Beniers tops the list. He may never be a point-per-game player, but he is a top-six center who can be trusted in all situations. Joey Daccord, while not immune from goalie inconsistencies, has shown over two seasons that he can be a 1A goaltender. Berkly Catton has shown that he has the makings of an on-ice playmaker and off-ice leader.
Equally important, there is a wave of younger players projected to arrive within a two-to-three-year time horizon, including Jake O’Brien, Julius Miettinen, Jani Nyman, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, Jagger Firkus, Ty Nelson, and Tyson Jugnauth. Not all will work out, but each could realistically contribute to varying degrees.
This suggests the ideal contention window for the team’s existing organizational players opens in the late 2020s. An all-out sale and rebuild—the course seemingly favored by some of the more disenchanted in the fanbase—would scuttle any prospect of leveraging this window.
Third, I reached a grim conclusion when evaluating the options for immediate star-level talent acquisition (and acceleration of the team’s timeline). No doubt, the Kraken have the money to pay a star salary. The problem is unrestricted free agency does not contain such a player.
The player at the top of the market, Alex Tuch, is more like a solid first-liner. Tuch may fit the team’s need for an interior scorer who is hard to play against. I’ve long been a fan of his and mentioned him often as a Kraken trade target last offseason. But he falls well short of the threshold this team needs to reform its current trajectory, and he is likely already in his decline phase.
Assuming Tuch actually comes available, is there a version of this offseason where signing Tuch makes sense? Perhaps, but building around a free-agent acquisition is not the best approach to this offseason given the state of the team.
Now, it is possible that a prime-aged player like Jordan Kyrou could be had in a trade. I’m skeptical, however, that leveraging future assets to make a Kyrou-level addition to the existing veteran core would yield the desired results. You’d improve your near-term playoff prospects but may dim the contention window in the late 2020s and beyond in the process.
There are players who fall into a different category though. Should Jason Robertson be available in trade talks, I would consider it. Timeline acceleration becomes a more realistic conversation when you’re talking about a top-20 forward in the league. Likewise, should any of the first-line centers who have been discussed as trade targets (Auston Matthews, Robert Thomas, and Nico Hischier) be available, they would also make me pause and consider pivoting strategies.
That said, it strikes me that these are still ill-fitting solutions to the problems this organization faces. Of course, I would want to understand the availability and cost of any of the prime-aged star players. In the abstract, though, pre-prime players (24 years old or younger) who can grow with the current young group are better fits in my view.
On the forward side, Mason McTavish is one of my favorite trade targets. He is far from a perfect player, but McTavish plays a power-forward style that would be a welcome complement to Seattle’s top six. Anaheim faces an offseason where it should ideally sign Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier to large, eight-year extensions. Add in five other forward contracts at or above $6.25 million AAV, and the Ducks are over-indexed on forward contracts. Since McTavish is an uncertain fit with the Ducks coaching staff (he was scratched at times), he could be an ascending player available for a palatable price. His deal has five years remaining at $7 million AAV, which would be no problem for Seattle with its cap status.
Elsewhere, could rumored deadline target Mackie Samoskevich be acquired in a deal built around a win-now piece for Florida, such as McCann? Matvei Mitchkov doesn’t check many of the boxes the Kraken need except for the most important one, generating offense; could Philadelphia be induced to move off him? What’s Cole Perfetti’s availability in Winnipeg? Could William Eklund be acquired from San Jose for a defenseman like Dunn now that the Sharks could land Ivar Stenberg at No. 2 overall in the draft? Taking a half step down, could forwards like Bradley Nadeau or Mavrik Bourque be crowded out of their team’s plans or cap structures? The list goes on.
On the blue line, I’d be inclined to make a strong offer to Buffalo for left defenseman Owen Power. If the Sabres are going to bring back free agent (and local boy) Tuch, they need to free up salary cap space, and the Sabres may be a bit over-indexed with talent on the back end. Power fits Seattle’s need for youth on the blue line, defensive production, and penalty-killing ability. He could form a capable top pair with Brandon Montour in the near term while Larsson moves into more of a second-pair workload. The cost would likely be steep, requiring multiple premium draft picks, a roster player like Ryker Evans, and a prospect. But acquiring an ascending, potential No. 1 defenseman would be worth it.
Otherwise, could the Kraken acquire Jordan Spence from Ottawa in a package built around McCann, a scoring forward who could help the Senators now? Would Anaheim part with Olen Zellweger or Pavel Mintyukov as an alternative path to breaking its logjam of young roster talent? What’s Simon Nemec’s current standing in New Jersey? (I’d ask even though I’m not as high on Nemec these days.)
These are the types of moves I’d be pursuing. If the Kraken acquired McTavish and Power in offseason trades, for example, they might not be better in the standings next season. But the vision for late-2020s competitiveness would be much clearer. This would be a win.
#3: Create lineup opportunities for internal young talent, fostering competition
On the internal development front, my goal would be to preserve NHL lineup opportunities for at least one more young player beyond those who have already established themselves. This could be a third-pair defense role, but for the forwards, ideally it would be in the top nine.
The Kraken have flexible pieces up front, including Freddy Gaudreau and Ryan Winterton, and on defense, including Josh Mahura and Cale Fleury, who can move in and out of the lineup if young players don’t step up. This should give the team comfort in taking the “risk” of leaving roles available for camp competition.
From my vantage, this is important for internal culture and development as the team’s prospects begin to knock on the door. Could we see a third-line wing spot that cycles through a dozen games each from Jani Nyman, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, and Jagger Firkus over the first half of the season? Could the Kraken cycle a veteran and Ty Nelson, or perhaps Ville Ottavainen, through a third-pair right-shot defense role early in the season? I’d like to see that start to happen.
This means refraining from significant additions in free agency that would block these opportunities. I would be interested in a reunion with Bobby McMann. It would help with the next priority listed here. Such a move would need to be paired with the departure of one or more veteran forwards, however, to promote this objective.
Could McCann be traded to a team like the Detroit Red Wings for a player on the verge that would factor into this mix (Michael Brandsegg-Nygård) or another strong up-and-comer to add to the Coachella Valley roster (Carter Bear)? Kaapo Kakko is the other possibility.
#4: Maintain baseline competitiveness to foster culture, development, and medium-term success
Returning to a point highlighted above, I’d look to avoid taking a significant step back in overall competitiveness in the forthcoming season. This matters to the team’s internal culture. Once an organization grows comfortable with losing, that mindset can be hard to shake. It is also important to the development of the young players. Centers like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright benefit in their own progress from playing with skilled players who can think and skate with them.
A competitive roster also helps Seattle in the perception battle. A long drought would injure the team’s relationship with its fanbase and also its reputation around the league for future free agents.
Most importantly, though, preserving a baseline of competitiveness is essential to the team’s overall timeline to true contention.
Enhanced visual for qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Thanks to @SasquatchNHL for suggestion to indicate Stanley Cup Champs. pic.twitter.com/KUmXqnlnmL
— NHLtoSeattle (@NHLtoSeattle) April 8, 2026
John Barr has shown that true rebuilds take longer than you might think. If the team is stripping away mid-tier players like Wright, Kakko, or Evans for futures returns alone, those steps would actively harm, not help, the team’s competitive prospects in the rest of the 2020s.
#5: Hold key draft and prospect assets where possible
The final objective is a simple one: hold the assets that could actually make you a legitimate playoff contender in the late 2020s. By focusing on additions below the star tier, the Kraken should be able to keep their own first-round picks in the coming drafts, while still keeping Tampa Bay’s first-rounders in play. The team would also be able to hold onto young players like Berkly Catton, Jake O’Brien, Julius Miettinen, and Oscar Fisker Mølgaard.
If a game-changing acquisition is on the table, this priority could go by the wayside. Ideally, the Kraken would add young, external talent to their existing pool with the goal of peaking in two to three years.
* * *
What do you think the team’s priorities and best targets should be? Let us know in the comments below.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
Thanks Curtis…
I like the approach but I’m concerned some will consider this a continuation of what they’ve been doing. With the exception of their 100 point season they’ve sent out veterans every year. They’ve brought in young players that fit their timeline like Kakko and Tolvanen and they’ve held onto future assets. They’ve brought in veterans where needed to help develop the young players.
Personally, I think this is a long process, but given the constraints they have, I think it’s the best opportunity they have. Unfortunately, I feel like some folks will view this as a prescription for the “mushy middle”. As is often mentioned, the NHL is a “strong link” league. How do you realistically see Seattle getting that player?
Go Kraken!!!
Good question and the most important one to ultimate contention. Put differently, I’d view this offseason as laying the foundation. Acquire a couple pre-prime pieces who could supplement Beniers/Catton/Daccord as the contending core. And then, after you see if that is fitting together, next offseason or the one after, you use the draft/prospect assets you’ve continued to accumulate to make the big deal for a star/strong link.
That said, I’d agree there is no need to be single track in our thinking here. If this offseason could yield you Jason Robertson and/or Robert Thomas (two players I’m very high on), you have to give it serious thought.
Thanks Curtis. I do think a Robertson or Thomas trade would have been much more realistic had they made the playoffs. As bad as that collapse was, at least it got them into a premium draft spot.
On to the draft…
I read through the article and can appreciate the thinking and scenario storming you lay out. There’s no magic bullet that will solve the barriers to winning the Kraken face. However I keep hearing calls for more youth. At least that’s how fan feedback is hitting me. But as I watched the playoffs it’s clear that players over the age of 30 are are the primary forces delivering the actions needed for there respective teams to win our compete. Players 30 and over are far outpacing 20 something’s in points. Not to mention leading the way defensively. I believe Seattle needs to add a couple top tier puck handling/scoring threats and we could easily net 10-15 more regular season wins. We’ve got excellent role playing vets. Ample CAP space. A talent burgeoning minors system. This team is on the cusp in my view. A guy 22-25 won’t help Seattle much for 4-5 years.
Last thought: I’ve watched prop sports teams that were heavy on D light on O many times over. If the O doesn’t develop during a season, even elite defenses will tire out, wear down towards seasons end. A few bad games coming out of a break at the finish of a season with no offensive support and the bottom can fall out. So went the Kraken after the Olympics. If they’d had a 30 something scoring threat next to Eberle for most of the season, the playoffs would have been likely in my opinion. Sign McMann, get another serious scoring threat, and playoffs 2027 will have Seattle in it.
We are no where close to competing for the Stanley cup, sorry to burst your bubble. The call for youth is an acceptance of where we are and wanting to develop those players to be able to bring a cup to Seattle in hopefully around 5 years. If we keep going the way we have we will be a bad team for a very long time.
Reads like more mediocrity at best. This team needs upgrades in top six linemen, on D and in goal, imo. I don’t have faith it can do that by this upcoming season. Sadly, the audit buys them still more time or sn excuse.
Key difference that Curtis pointed out is to stop bringing in roster blockers as we have done every season.
No one in our prospect pool has been blocked from playing by a FA. This is the first offseason where it MIGHT matter.
Positions on the second and third lines have been….
… devoid of any player who can really fully those roles sans Shane Wright. I think you’re greatly over estimating the skill and readiness of the prospect pool if you think anyone in a Coachella was ready and prevented from having a roster spot.
And no, you don’t just give spots to kids for giggles. As much as a lot of fans want to believe it, development doesn’t happen faster by being dunked on for an entire season
But Don, that’s how they do it on pee-wee.
Donjaun were not where you think we are, the vets we keep signing aren’t doing it for us. RF has been fired for the direction he’s taken us… we do have kids that could be in the lineup but we haven’t chosen to go in that direction.
Nino, don’t assume what other think, ever. We are exactly where I think we are (still developing). What is writtten above is cold hard facts, you don’t just throw prospects into your lineup for the giggles when they’re not ready. It’s a recipe for both disaster. Your prospects don’t learn anything getting dunked on and you just end up losing fans (Chicago the last few years) while your team is unwatchable garbage.
I’ll repeat it again for those in the back. None of our prospects were NHL ready this season. The closest was OFM but he needed a full season of baking in the A. Nyman showed repeatedly he’s not ready and everyone else is a tier down from those 2.
Very good article, this is definitely the focus the kraken should have moving forward.
I’m curious about your thoughts on the coaching staff, I can’t see how your outline could possibly work with a Dino coach who wants his vets in important roles.
We desperately need to stop singing roster blockers and focus as you said on acquiring younger players who can contribute when we are potentially in a win window.
I’m curious about this.
“. If the team is stripping away mid-tier players like Wright, Kakko, or Evans”
Too me these are players who are exactly the type of player that we should target in trades not be moving on from.
Your overall opinion aligns with mine, try to be competitive but do it with our young players in important roles…. Build from there.
Perhaps my reference to Wright/Kakko/Evans may have been a bit of a “straw man argument” to list those players as among those that could move out, but I get the sense that some are willing to sell everything and start over. As I mentioned I just think that you need to calibrate that approach. A full fire sale could do more harm than good (and not just because you’re potentially selling low).
The coaching staff issue is an interesting one that I want to think about a little bit more. Right now, at least, I don’t view it as an impediment to this approach because I’m not suggesting a “go to the bottom,” or “have the youngest team in the NHL” approach. Is it ideally constructed to match these objectives? I’m not sure. But I get the sense that the organization really likes and values Lane Lambert, so it’s worth seeing if that manifests a bit more in on-ice development in season two.
And a good coach.
Somewhat off topic but in terms of shifting priorities in the face of changing circumstances, is there a player in this year’s draft that might be worth moving UP for? TOR and VAN aren’t trading down and going all the way up to SJ’s pick at 2 might be a bit much, but what if Chicago was willing to trade down from 4 and it wouldn’t break the bank? Seeing lots of mocks with Verhoeff, Malhotra, and even some with Stenberg available at #4….
Not re-signing Oleksiak, Schwartz and Tolvanen and trading McCann for someone more “timeline friendly” like Marco Kasper, Simon Nemec (I like what a 22 year old Nemec could bring to Seattle), Samoskevich, Kaliyev or Beaudoin along with some decent picks in 26 and 27 (Smits? Verhoeff? Bjorck? Novotny? Cullen?) would probably be enough to get the team on track for a late 2020 run, as you say. Eventually we also need to shed ourselves of “Dunn and Dunner” if we want to be contenders.
I still have faith in the development of our current young players, many of whom can play center or wing.
Yes agree Seattle G but that’s dependent on them not signing a few 34 year old vets to fill in the players they don’t resign. We’ve yet to see that from Seattle… “new” GM we shall see. I feel like we will know by the end of the offseason if it was a mistake to not fully clean house.
Who is the 34 year old vet you’re talking about? I see the guy in Columbus who replaced Francis in Carolina signed a 34 year old vet to $6m x 6 with NMC until age 38 and nobody has batted an eye. Where is all the talk about how crippled Seattle’s cap is by the Stephenson contract? Oh yeah, I forgot, he’s blocking Shane Wright from taking more defensive zone draws.
This vague “play the young guys” and “be like Vegas” schtick is so tiresome. They should be in on every big player while also tanking and they need an old hand like Kelly McCrimmon AND they need a smart, young GM like Eric Tulsky. The “Dino” they have behind the bench is no John Tortorella .. or Paul Maurice or John Cooper or Jared Bednar or Craig Berube or Bruce Cassidy or Mike Sullivan…
Everyone who works for the Kraken is an idiot… all you have to do is listen to the pee-wee coaches from ECH. Nothing could be simpler.
Blah, blah, blah….
Was being sarcastic regarding the 34, it’s not far off though from our formula
The team has yet to sign any FAs even close to 34…
There’s pessimism and there’s whatever that was.
Ummm you might have missed a post or two.
I have yet to see you acknowledge that you made that up. In fact, I saw you double down.
What are you talking about, I think I know who you are now. A name change isn’t going to help you, you’re still the same person who trolls people on social media and gets called out repeatedly. Go away please.
Keep Tolvanen and Mcann. Focus on problem areas like defensemen and scoring.
I really wonder if the writers and the commenters ever check in on other NHL teams? Pretty much every team that did not make the playoffs and some of those who did but did not advance far have the exact same approach as mentioned above. That means that if there were any trades out there, many other teams would also be in line. Have the Kraken done anything in their five seasons to show that they are able to swing big deals?
Even more importantly, are there any talented players who would waive a NTC/NMC to come to a franchise with zero identity? How to get an identity? Hire a young, smart, aggressive GM, which you see happening all over the league, who will be the representative of the new face of the Kraken. What the Preds just did was exactly what the Kraken should have done but they never had the guts to make such a bold move.
Instead the Kraken limp along with Francis-lite Jason Botterill. I have seen zero from him in the time with the Kraken that shows he can be the face of a completely new identity for the team. Considering he was been there more than five years, that is hardly surprising. I have no expectations at all for this team in the near future. While that other expansion team run by really smart guys goes to another Cup final, the Kraken endure mediocrity.
The only good news for this team, and it could be subtle in its effect, is Melinda French Gates coming on as a minority owner. Although I am sure it is more targeted as the new basketball franchise, she has more gravitas that Samantha Holloway and may be able to help right the Kraken ship in some unknown way. It is the only really positive development for a weak roster going into another season led by Botterill and Lane Lambert.
Too bad you’re not the GM. It’s all so easy.
The Kraken need a coach like David Carle who can develop their young talent and prospects. Lane Lambert lost buy in from the players after the Olympic break and it’s hard to see any improvement with him remaining at the helm.
David Carle wins college championships. What evidence do we have that he develops players who are successful NHLers? From what I read he’s a phenomenal coach who is lincredible at adjustments and tactics. I haven’t read that players coming out of Denver have received a premium from playing for him. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I haven’t heard about his “development” mind.
Carle has helped to develop players like Bobby Brink & Zeev Buium who are early in their NHL careers. We won’t know how good Carle will be at developing players at the pro level until he takes an NHL job. However, I would rather give an opportunity to a coach who has developed junior and high school players to win 3 NCAA Championships in the last 5 years than continue with Lambert. It’s just as important to have a coach who can design plays and motivate players to win games, which Carle has done at Denver and in coaching the U.S. to 2 World Junior Championships.
There are also coaches with NHL experience that the Kraken could explore that would give me more hope than continuing with Lambert.
I want them to hire Knoblach.
People advocating for successful college coaches always overlook the graveyard of failures. Ironic, since Hakstol is one of them
From what I’ve read and what I’ve hear I’d love to have Carle as a coach. I’ve heard it explained how he’s masterful at making in-game adjustments and when I look at the number of times he’s brought teams from behind for victories or finished the season strong that all adds up. Having Buium and “developing” Buium are two different things. (And by the way, I originally thought passing on Buium for Catton was a mistake – I’m not so sure anymore.) I’m not saying he’s not good at developing players, I just don’t have anything substantive to make that claim. I don’t understand how one makes the leap to claiming he’s capable of developing NHL players without anything legitimate to point to.
As far as “losing buy in” after the Olympic break, again, I don’t know what happened there but it certainly seems to me everyone outside the organization – and maybe inside too – decided the “real” Kraken finally showed up after the break. To me that sort of “binary” thinking is overly simplistic. I do think Curtis’s analysis was much more nuanced than that and as such, more pragmatic.
The “real kraken” is relative to coaching as well. Coaching was poor all season long and we scraped by in a horrible pacific division off stellar goaltending until we didn’t. He’s always been a horrible coach and that’s part of why we had one of our worst seasons ever when you take into consideration our win percentage in a historically bad division.
It was just confirmation bias kicking in for those outside journals who had written the team off IMO. Something acute happened during that break. I honestly can’t remember a team having such a binary season flip at the break that didn’t involve crazy injuries. It’s possible it was that but it didn’t sound like it from the post season pressers
While I really can’t say went wrong coming out of the break… I have a theory.
Shoot the puck!
Going back to Hakstol’s final season and his “Shoot the f-ing puck!” outburst. After that little dust up the Kraken went out and lost 11 of the next 14.
The following year after a strong start, Bylsma started taking about needing to shoot the puck more. “We wanna be a shoot first team”… and just like that, into the tank.
This season the team got off to it’s best start in franchise history and then the murmurings about needing to shoot more started surfacing. I said it at the time, they’re talking about a “shooters mentality” and every time they go down that path they go into the tank… and sure enough, into the tank. Did they spend that week on the ice over the break working on “shooting the puck more”? I think maybe they did.
So, before some wise guy tries to educate me about the idea of more shots leading to more goals… I get it. I don’t need this incredibly simplistic idea explained and I don’t think anyone else on here does either. More shots is great, but I think there’s more to it than that.
Ray Ferraro was recently talking about the Canes and their shot volume and as he explained it, when they shoot the puck and they miss, they know they’re going to get to the loose puck first. As he said, it’s not that they shoot more than everyone else, it’s that the are in the o-zone far more than anyone else. It’s not the shots, it’s the forecheck and the puck battles. That’s not the Kraken, and when they rush to shoot, it usually just ends up being a turnover.
In the following episode Ferraro again mentioned the Canes and their defense. The key to their defense is that they spend so much time on offense. Teams can’t score when they’re trapped in their own end. Again, this comes down to the forecheck and winning puck battles.
I suspect – and I’m not smart enough to quantify this – they came out of the break with a renewed commitment to “shoot the puck”, and it worked great… for Bobby McMann. Nobody shot the puck more or had more goals. He had ten and nobody else had more than four. For him it means millions of dollars. For everyone else it meant more turnovers, less posession and less goals.
I’m all for more shots, but with this group, more shots seems to mean more time in their own end.
Daryl very well said, the system the Kraken ran under Lambert was a very passive system on both ends of the ice. If you don’t pick your shots well it could be another 10 minutes before you get another chance. It’s not a system that is going to win you games. It’s an old dead system for a reason, we have seen this with the teams that did anything in the playoffs.
The problem, to me, with blaming Lambert is Bylsma went the other route – trying to be a rush team – and had abysmal results as well. I don’t have the temerity to think I can second guess NHL coaching. My “theory” about shooting the puck has more to do with the players rather than the coaching. It seemed to me the year they made the playoffs they were flying to the puck and playing fast every night. Since then, not so much. On top of that, the puck handling and passing have had some really awful stretches. Unfortunately, those stretches seem to correlate with them engaging their “shooters mentality”.
Answering your rhetorical question, for my part, I can say I have spent a reasonable amount of time, perhaps unreasonable in life-adjusted terms, “check[ing] in on other NHL teams.” The approach set forth here won’t be easy, will be competitive, and would require a degree of aggressiveness that the front office has not yet shown with consistency. Thanks for reading!
We will drown in minutia.
Pretty solid article. I think you offer a great route for the kraken to take in the offseason. I agree about McTavish and Robertson. I think they would both fit on the team well. Although, I don’t think Dallas is gonna give up Robertson for one of our guys. I know Ottawa is looking into McTavish right now, which I hope they do not get him. On the free agency I do agree that there isn’t a lot of superstar talent on it this year. Maybe Tuch, but I thihk Buffalo will resign him first. I also think some of the fans would not except him just for his age as well. I think on that route, we should just resign McMann and bring up Nyman, Molgaard, and Firkus, since those three are all NHL ready. Really nice to see this instead of all the blow it all up and rebuild types on social media. Personally, I think that would be the worst route for the kraken. With the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl and the mariners having deep playoff runs, plus the Sonics return looming, I think that would push the kraken to be more irrelevant then now. Especially since that would require us to be bottom feeders for at least five years.
Great article and takes.
A team with better understanding if it’s window gives Shane Wright more ice time this year. They also wouldn’t have signed Stephenson who will be a net negative any day now, but has many many years left under a big dollar contract.
A solid understanding of window and viewing ALL decisions through that lens is needed. Hopefully they get buy in from top to bottom and stop playing the in between game as much. In between approach is best way to never win a championship.
Stephenson is already a net negative. Playing him almost 20 minutes a games is shambolic coaching
Trading for MacTavish is interesting in that the Kraken already have a MacTavish in Wright, except SW is a superior defensive player
At least the article acknowledges that fruitlessness in charging after peak career players like Kyrou. It’s a losing strategy, they’re going to end up paying for the decline
I don’t understand all the hate some people have for Stephenson. The team needs a few experienced vets and he’s actually perfect for the timeline. He can be here for the next 4-5 years while the young guys are figuring it out, and that will be fine. This team isn’t winning a Cup with or without Stephenson in the near future, so it doesn’t even matter. What matters is having guys in the room who have been there and can help the young guys build confidence. Stephenson and Monty are perfect for that, and even though Eberle hasn’t won a Cup, he’s a good role model.
Honestly, I don’t think it would matter to the Stephenson haters if he were Mark Stone, Matt Duchene or Jordan Staal. They just can’t stand the idea of having a player over 31 on the team. It’s also all about his salary, which is totally irrelevant.
Sure the team needs a few experiences vets, but they already had that on the roster.
They needed more guys that were solid but in an UPWARD trajectory. Signing Stephenson and even Marner were win now moves that showed management had little idea where the team was relative to a window to contend.
It’s moves like those that keep teams hovering around .500 but never contending.
Marner?
I think he meant Montour.
Marner would have made sense. Having a Center for the next 4-5 years when you built your entire identity about drafting Centers to build the foundation with has completely undermined the original build. And then playing him so much has just blown the structure to bits, all so they can finish … 27th
You see some kind of center strategy. I see centers and wingers. Beniers, Wright, Catton and O’Brien could be great wingers on any team.
Or they understood the situation perfectly, and wanted a few more drafts picking in the top 8 to shore up the prospect pool while still making the games exciting. That would be a great argument for bringing on a Stephenson. If they went your route we could be picking 15-20 instead of 7.
With a lot of cap space I wonder if we lean into to moving both Dunn and McCann. If we utilize retention to maximize returns pretty much every solid contending team will salivate over them. That chart showing playoff years indicates that there are some teams whose windows are likely to be rapidly closing. Look at the trend of San Jose and Chicago and you see that a decade ago both were coming off incredibly strong consistent playoff windows but have quickly fallen to the bottom of the league since then. Teams like the Knights, Oilers, Kings, Lightning, Florida, Avs all have cores that are generally on the wrong side of 30 and likely view themselves as cup contenders next year if healthy. They run the risk of being the next Penguins where they dont get that last big swing at a cup and are looking at the reality of a rebuild. Most of those teams likely dont have pieces we would covet but if we get a bunch of futures that go beyond our timeline, we can bundle those up and flip to other teams for RFA’s outside their ELC’s with strong upside potential.
I am worried that to maintain competitiveness we wont actually give chances to the youth and enough ice time like we have since the team started. We should be worrying less about the number of Points we end the season with as long as we generally are able to hold our own in each game. We need to accept that younger players are likely going to make mistakes that cost us games and should be OK with those coachable moments. Playing Molgaard out there for 9 minutes and Wright 12 while putting Stephenson on the ice for 18+ seems like a poor decision just to lose 3-2 instead of 4-2. We clearly dont want to lose 5-1 every night but Lambert’s low risk system probably keeps that from happening too much anyways.
If we dont see at least 60+ games of emerging D prospects combined (Jugnauth, Nelson, Fiddler or even Ottavainen) and 150+ games of Forwards (Firkus, Nyman, Obrien, Miettinen, Molgaard, etc.) then it feels like a development miss.
McCann should stay. There’s too much positive there. He’s the kind of player we need and have. Trade someone who turns the puck over and is to slow to keep up with the speed of the game today. Other teams are always looking for defensemen how about Dunn and Oleksiak. Replace them with another defensemen and a winger. Add some cash and move on.
What is the point of McCann staying? He should be on a playoff contending team like New Jersey, Florida (they will back after last season’s hiccup) or even a team like Detroit who now desperately needs to show results after sucking ass for so many years. McCann is wasted in Seattle, but what he could bring back in a trade could be gold.
Historically speaking, having a bunch of players “on the wrong side of 30” is apparently how you win a Cup.
Fiddler is going to Denver. Plus he’s a baby. None of those young D you mention, except Fiddler, will probably see more than 20 games in the NHL. However, a guy like Albert Smits and Simon Nemec can start playing tomorrow and will have long careers, in the same way forwards like Beniers, Wright and Catton will have long careers.
Nemec is a young RD who needs to play big minutes and develop his game on the PP. That’s one reason he is kind of stuck on the Devils. He’d face the same situation on the Kraken where he’d be behind Montour and Larsson in the pecking order. Nothing against the player but his not a good fit, unless the Kraken go big on a drastic re-do-over of the entire roster. RD is basically the one part of the Kraken roster that is a strength right now, along with goaltending.
I’m not sure how long he’d be behind Larsson and if they move out Dunn – even though he’s on the other side – I could see him getting time on the PP. To me the biggest selling point is the timeline.
I’ve gotta say… I’m always impressed how much folks who watch hockey are so convinced they know more about development than folks who actually spend their entire professional lives doing just that. I’m also impressed by how much more they know about the players than the folks who actually work with them as opposed to just watching them and reading what other “watchers” have to say.
I’m impressed with how poorly the kraken have been at building a team and hiring a coaching staff. You forget that the kraken are being evaluated vs the ability of other franchises. Our fans who know hockey see the shortcomings of the krakens strategy vs how other competent teams have grown. I haven’t heard anyone saying they are smarter than the kraken management, I’ve heard a lot of people say the kraken management isn’t as good as the NHL average.
i dont buy that personally. im not going to act like theyve been a stanley cup caliber decision making force either but i do recognize that the dice havent rolled in the teams favor either (unintentional vegas related pun).
teams werent going to be as blindsided as they were with our expansion draft, even when i go back and look at who was available, the players they didnt select then that they should have werent obvious choices at the time but hindsight picks that would have improved the team dramatically.
the lottery balls havent fallen in our favor the last 2 years. we dropped 2 spots last year which would have left either porter martone, james hagans or brady martin still available (not that i dont like the catton pick) and this year we obviously lost one which will remove any or all of carels, verhoeff or smits from our choices. and thats just the team losing ground in the draft. we werent put in position to draft high the bedard year, we obviously missed celebrini and scheaffer and were going to miss mckenna unless something completely bonkers happens. so at no point have the GMs for the kraken had the opportunity to draft an immediate franchise changing player (lane hutson obviously qualifies but every team skipped him at least once if not twice). every season the high end free agents either resign before the market opens, agree to a sign and trade or go directly to a contender. waving money at them isnt going to change that as easily as it does in other major leagues. can agree disco dan was a big miss, cant remember if the main reason hak was let go was because he lost the room or not.
you can argue the teams reliance on vets and blocking the youth movement, you can argue a few contracts but nothing that id say puts them below league average.
i understand the frustration because i want to see something more exciting too but to act like they have completely whiffed on multiple opportunities is wrong. this years FA class is barely worth looking at, only exciting thing that can happen on that end is a trade.
It’s nice that you can see a positive in the krakens past performance but let’s be honest even the teams owners don’t see it your way and I’d assume they have more information about the situation then we do.
its not that i see positives in past performance, its that i dont see glaring mistakes in their draft or free agency signings based on what is actually available to them. of course id love to wave a magic wand and have mcdavid, celebrini, makar and hellbuyck on the team but a player of that caliber hasnt existed on the market for them to even attempt it. kaprisov was one i had hope for, robertson is currently another but they have to be available. so i cant yell about FA signings.
the lottery balls havent been kind so i cant complain about who theyve drafted.
i can complain about bylsma, i can complain about not retaining certain players and spending on others but i dont see where the choices theyve made based on what the circumstances were says that the team is worse than the average. id say theyre exactly average.
Catton wasn’t last year. They passed on Buium and Parekh for him. O’Brien was the guy last year, the 4th C they chose first rd. This was after they spent $ on a mediocre at best veteran C with a 7 year contract anyway…
They’ve made genuine Kraken level idiotic decisions all on their own, bad dice rolls or not
Yeah I hadn’t had enough coffee yet. Obrian cant be judged until he comes up so im not going to look at buuim or parekh as misses. They didnt set the world on fire last year, which isnt a judgemental. They both project to be very good d men but yeah. Until we see obrian with an S on his chest there cant be a comparison. My main point is the team has yet to be in position to draft a franchise star and/or their picks were at least in line with projections. Like shane was the right (hah) pick in his draft at that spot regardless of how hes produced so far. Again, no bedard/celebrini/Schaeffers have been in our draft range. In previous posts I have acknowledged missing gaulthier and hutson. I dont know many more players that have outperformed our picks in the top 10 of their draft years that they could have taken.
When they signed Stephenson to that deal it was a bad contract, as it ages it wont matter as much. Already 7 mil for a 2nd line center isnt a stretch. The comparable there isnt who they got, its whether or not there was a better option available. Marchessault, stamkos were available that year. Id have to look at the FA class to see who they should have tried harder for. A lot of people could say they shouldn’t have tried at all and recognized where they were and that isnt a bad take but they thought (2 years in obviously wrong) they only needed a spoonful of sugar to get back into the playoffs. But at that specific moment I dont know that things looked THAT off. There was an expectation that bjorkstrand and burakovsky would improve which also didnt happen. A lot of players didnt jump like projected or hoped. Hindsight is 20/20 but I dont blame them for attempting optimism. You can blame them for sticking with it maybe
Buium and Parekh – to be clear – were in the Catton draft. I think most folks, myself included, assumed they would take Buium when it turned out he was available at No.8. I also think most folks didn’t expect Buium to drop all the way to No.12. Given the obvious – teams almost certainly know more than fans and the media – I think it’s fair to assume there was a disconnect between the public appraisal of Buium and the estimation around the league. I haven’t watched them extensively, but nothing I’ve read about their performance so far has made me regret Seattle taking Catton rather than Buium or Parekh.
“Center” just means you have been one of the best players on your last teams. It doesn’t mean you will be a center in the NHL. Teams are drafting best available (usually). You can draft 10 centers in a row. It doesn’t matter. They are just forwards.
I’d also add to the list of headwinds that the Kraken trying to be competitive is aligning with the largest increases in cap in league history. You alluded to it here, but this is what’s driving the player resignings and shitty FA markets. That combined with the rise in number of players getting trade protection since Covid has made team improvement a struggle for everyone who isn’t views as a top 5 destination.
would it be worth it to try to pry the 2nd pick off the sharks and attempt to retain our 7th pick as well?
would a package of McCann, Dunn, tampas 1st from this year and out next years 1st (top 5 protected) be too much or not enough? maybe swap one of those out for Evans if throwing out too many babies with the bathwater, but it gives san jose a guy who can quarterback their powerplay in done and some vet scoring plus some future draft stock. as much as i dont like the idea of losing either player this would be a way to hopefully get either a stud D (Chase Reid? is that the consensus right now?) with the 2nd or Stenberg and use the 7th for either a D we didnt grab at 2 (verhoeff, carels smits, rudolph) or swing on a offensive guy like Bjorck or Belchetz.
am i out of my mind or does that look workable and fair for both parties?
only reason i made next years a top 5 protected is obviously itd be great to get Dupont if we are in the gutter again.
I could be wrong but I’d assume SJ would be looking for a package that adds to their high end youth and not an older vets. Maybe something along the lines of Evans, wright and a few first round picks might get you the second pick. I feel there is a huge premium for very high picks because they are very difficult to get and require suffering loss of revenue and also luck to get.
both Dunn and McCann are still late 20s low 30s. dunn would bring them a powerplay QB that they would lose in not drafting reid with the 2nd pick, McCann adds 30 goals and some grit.i think San Jose would take both those things but ill admit i dont know how to calculate high draft pick price in this draft. once you get out of the top 4-6 picks in this one its a big shrug and i know thats can drive the price higher.
Where does McTavish fit when you have Beniers, Catton, Wright, O’Brien, and Stephenson at center? Even if you trade Shane in the deal, we still need to move players off their natural positions… why do that for McTavish? I feel like they are just enamored with players who were drafted high by other teams and didn’t pan out…
I don’t care about McTavish BUT…are these bad future lines?
Beniers-McTavish-Wright
Or
Catton-McTavish-O’Brien
They could be great.
I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING CURTIS SAID – THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
Does anyone think Kraken could have a shot with Larkin? I know he’s a center but he’d be a great addition. Honestly, I don’t have confidence that the front office could pull the right deal off.
Is there any team more like Detroit than Seattle? I can’t imagine he waives to go to the Kraken.