2026 NHL Draft Notebook: Trades, prospect tiers, and Kraken perspective
After sorting through video on scores of prospects, crunching numbers on thousands more, and reading countless reports, rankings, and mock drafts, I approach the finish line of the pre-draft process stuffed with impressions and opinions, both broad and specific. As...
Ep. 387 – Bobby McMann is back with Seattle, Mackie Samoskevich is in
It's been a wild week in the NHL in the lead-up to the NHL Draft, and the Seattle Kraken played a part in it, trading for Mackie Samoskevich and re-signing prized forward Bobby McMann, who was set to become a free agent. The guys give their reactions to those deals,...
Kraken audit complete, (some) areas for growth revealed
When Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke held his end-of-season press conference in April, he raised eyebrows by indicating that the organization would bring in a third party to audit every facet of the team’s hockey operations procedures. It wasn’t intended to draw a ton of...
The 2026 NHL Draft Big Board – Compiled public prospect rankings
NHL Draft Week continues here at Sound Of Hockey with, arguably, my most anticipated post every year. Today, we have the Sound Of Hockey Big Board. As part of our draft process, we also published a midseason version of the Big Board, which you can check out here. What...
Grading the Seattle Kraken’s draft classes to date
It’s officially draft week here at Sound Of Hockey. While the Seattle Kraken made waves over the weekend by trading for Mackie Samoskevich and re-signing Bobby McMann to a five-year, $34.5 million contract, they also must now quickly shift their attention to how they...
Seattle Kraken trade 25th overall pick for Mackie Samoskevich
The Seattle Kraken made their first big splash of the offseason, trading the 25th overall pick to the Florida Panthers for 23-year-old forward Mackie Samoskevich. The move gives Seattle a young, skilled winger with speed, scoring upside, and Stanley Cup experience.
2026 NHL Draft Scouting Video Hub
As we have done in years past, our Sound Of Hockey NHL Draft Scouting Video Hub is a compilation of shift-by-shift gameplay videos for hundreds of draft-eligible prospects. With the 2026 NHL Draft just a week away, there is no better time to actually put eyes on the...
Ep. 386 – What Can the Kraken Learn from the Hurricanes?
FYI, we intended to have this one available on YouTube but had some technical difficulties, so audio only this week. With Curtis out of town, our good buddy Blaiz Grubic joins the show this week to fill in, making his Sound Of Hockey Podcast debut! Lots of discussion...
What the Kraken can learn from the Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes
The Seattle Kraken can learn some major lessons from the Carolina Hurricanes, who completed a historic run through the playoffs and lifted Lord Stanley’s Cup as the NHL’s best team on Sunday. Led by a forward-thinking scientist/blogger/stathlete-turned-general...