In the third installment of this “becoming a playoff contender” series, we evaluate the Seattle Kraken offseason moves and determine what are the chances they make the playoffs. If you need a refresher, in Part 1, we determined that an NHL team will need a non-empty-net goal differential of minus five to have a 50 percent chance of making the playoffs. In Part 2 of the series, we dug into the goal forecast of the current players on the roster to determine the Kraken would need to add 45.6 more goals this offseason.
Roster changes prior to free agency
The forecast from Part 2 was based on all rostered and restricted free agent players on the team at the time. A lot has changed since then so let’s evaluate the changes.
The first order of business was the NHL Entry Draft. As most of you know by now, Shane Wright fell to the Seattle Kraken in the fourth overall spot in the draft. Wright was one of the few players taken in the draft expected to play in the NHL this season. There is a chance Wright does not make the Kraken roster immediately, but we feel that is unlikely and therefore will be punching him into the scoring forecast.
The prior goal forecast was also done before the qualifying offer deadline for all pending restricted free agents. The Kraken ended up not qualifying Ryan Donato*, Daniel Sprong, Haydn Fleury, and Dennis Cholowski. We will come back to Donato in a second, but this impacted the forecasted numbers since Donato and Sprong were forecasting over 15 goals for next season.
The expected goals for Fleury and Cholowski also impacted the forecast, but we only projected three goals combined for both of them, so they did not have a material impact on the overall forecasted number. When we removed Donato, Sprong, Fleury, and Cholowski, the gap in goals to become a playoff contender became much bigger.
Uh oh. They were heading in the wrong direction.
Roster additions
In addition to Shane Wright, the Kraken would go on to add forwards André Burakovsky, Andrew Poturalski, and John Hayden plus defenseman Justin Schultz during the first week of free agency. For a while, it looked as if the Kraken were done with only a few goal-scoring players left available. Nine days after the free agency period opened, the Kraken landed Oliver Bjorkstrand in a steal of a trade for the Kraken. With Bjorkstrand and Burakovsky on the roster, things began to look better for the scoring capabilities of the Kraken for the 2022-23 season.
The team also eventually re-signed Donato two weeks after free agency opened and added another depth defenseman in Michal Kempny.
New forecast projections
With these roster additions, now is time to punch them into the forecast. First up, how do we forecast Shane Wright’s numbers this upcoming season? For an estimate on Wright, we isolated the forwards selected in the top five picks since 2015 that would go on to play more than 15 games in the NHL in the season immediately after their draft season.
The average goals scored for that cohort of players was 16.8 in their first season. To be slightly more conservative, we are going to lower Wright’s forecasted goal totals to 14.8 for 2022-23. We recognize this is a very simple methodology but feel it is a reasonable number of goals to expect of Wright.
Plugging in the other player additions is relatively easy since it is based on their 2021-22 adjusted goals per game times the number of games we forecast those players to play in the 2022-23 season.
We also recognize there are some tweaks we could make to individual players’ expected performances next season. We are intentionally not making any individual adjustments because we think some players will exceed the forecast while others will be below the forecast. At the end of the season, they will even themselves out. When we put it all together, here is the current forecast for adjusted goal differential.
Playoff chances?
After all the changes and modifications to the goal scoring forecast, we are estimating the Kraken will have a -7.7 adjusted goal differential. If that forecast is realized, the Kraken should stick around the playoff hunt and would have a decent shot at making it to the postseason.
Based on the chart above, should the Kraken have a goal differential of minus seven, this gives them a 33 percent chance of making the playoffs.
What could go right and what could go wrong?
Again, we recognize this is an over-simplified forecast model, but there were significantly more complicated models that were way off last season.
Here are a few things that could go wrong for the Kraken:
The goalie tandem of Philipp Grubauer and Martin Jones does not improve and ends up last in team goaltending again.
Injuries. Brandon Tanev and Jaden Schwartz had significant reductions in games played last season due to injuries. The injury bug will come back in 2022-23, but who will it hit and how hard? Let’s just hope it doesn’t come for one of the goal scorers.
Burakovsky’s goal scoring rate decreases when playing for the less-talented Seattle Kraken compared to last year’s Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.
There are also things that could go right for the Kraken in 2022-23.
Goaltending is at or above league average. This could swing an additional 30 goals in the goal differential category.
Joonas Donskoi returns to form. 2021-22 was a brutal season for Donskoi, where his shooting percentage was a dismal 2.2 percent. If he gets back to his career average over 10 percent, he could be looking at a 15-to-20 goal season.
Shane Wright exceeds expectations with a 25-plus-goal season. Right now, we are conservatively estimating just under 15 goals for Wright. It is a possibility that he exceeds that number in his rookie campaign.
Lowering playoff expectations
It is rare for a team to bounce back from a 60-point season and vault themselves into a playoff spot. Since the 2000-01 season, only five teams qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs the season after posting 70 points or fewer. So maybe we should temper the expectations a bit as this team has several young pieces with new players that might not be totally comfortable playing with each other yet. With that said, playing meaningful games in March, even with an outside chance of making the playoffs, should be considered a success for 2022-23.
General manager Ron Francis has made it clear that the goal of the Seattle Kraken is to make the playoffs in 2022-23, which might seem like a stretch goal coming from a team that just finished fourth from last place in the NHL standings. The team will need to be aggressive this offseason to even be taken seriously in its quest to contend.
To explore what it will take to get into contention next year, we will be putting together a three-part series on how that could happen. The scenarios presented will be full of assumptions with imperfect data and incomplete analysis, but at its core, this will be a thought exercise that will help evaluate the offseason moves needed to make the Kraken a potential playoff team.
Evaluating the gap
The NHL’s point system, with one point awarded for overtime and shootout losses, makes things a little complicated, but effectively, teams must win more than they lose to make the playoffs. To do that, they need to score more goals than their opponents. Therefore, we will be using goals as our primary metric here, rather than standings points.
One challenge to consider when using goals, in NHL team statistics, a shootout win or loss will add a goal for or against respectively. Along with empty-net goals, these would overstate or understate a team’s goals with respect to this analysis, so keep that in mind. We were able to adjust the totals to remove empty-net and shootout goals, but those bonus goals awarded for shootout wins will remain.
To set the stage, let us look at the last 10 full seasons’ adjusted goals for and adjusted goals against to see how teams fared.
In the chart, the diagonal line represents when the goals for equals the goals against. This would be a goal differential (goals for minus goals against) of zero. If the team’s goal differential is positive (above the line), then the team has good chance of making the playoffs.
The picture is clearer if we just focus on the teams that qualify for the playoffs and those that do not, based on goal differential “buckets.”
Based on the data, a negative five goal differential is where teams have roughly a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs.
Kraken goal differential gap for contending in 2022-23
During the 2021-22 season the Kraken had a negative 59 adjusted goal differential. Assuming the negative five goal differential is the target for putting themselves in a solid position to qualify for the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, then they will need to eliminate a 54-goal gap. There are many ways this can be accomplished, but for this exercise we are going to keep it simple and focus on goaltending and goal scoring.
Goaltending must be better
According to Evolving-Hockey.com, the Kraken goaltending had a “Goals Saved Above Expected” (GSAx) of negative 41.3.
The math behind these numbers can be a bit complicated, but let’s put it in simple terms: If the Kraken received just average goaltending from their goaltenders, they would have allowed 41 fewer goals in the 2021-22 season. Expecting exeptional goaltending next season might be wishful thinking, but the goaltending tandem of Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger gave us reason for optimism by both playing their best hockey of the season down the stretch.
Expecting a major improvement to goaltending took a hit when the team announced that Driedger underwent surgery for a torn ACL with an expected timeline to return of seven-to-nine months. For now, we are going to assume a reasonable 10 GSAx improvement to next year’s goaltending.
Part two
This gives you the framework of the analysis that we intend to do here. In the next installment in the series, we will focus on goal scoring projections for the current Seattle Kraken players and where the team might be able to add personnel to address gaps in becoming a contender.
It’s no secret the Seattle Kraken intend to be active in free agency this summer. While the team was resilient throughout its inaugural season, it became abundantly clear in the end that there was a significant talent gap between what Seattle was icing and what its opponents were trotting out on a lot of nights. General manager Ron Francis has been frank in stating his intent to close that gap by bringing in talent from the outside, and there is a necessity for the team to fill out both its NHL and AHL rosters for next season. So a LOT of contracts will surely be handed out in the coming months.
But is now the time to hand out massive deals to bring in a top free agent or two? Or should Seattle hold off and build for the longer-term future?
Why the Kraken should swing for the fences in free agency
There are a couple players on expiring contracts—Johnny Gaudreau and Filip Forsberg—who would individually move the needle for the Kraken offensively. Both of these players are bona fide top-line forwards in the NHL who will be fresh off 40-plus-goal seasons. In a different way, right-shot, smooth-skating defenseman John Klingberg could also help and would also come at a big price tag.
With almost $23 million in available salary cap space, Seattle happens to be one of just a handful of teams in the NHL that can theoretically foot the bill for guys in this tier of unrestricted free agents. But after finishing two spots above last place in the NHL this past season, would big-name players in the primes of their respective careers want to come to a franchise that is just getting its tentacles wet? And if they do want to, should Seattle dish out long-term deal(s) that could land in the 10-digit-per-season realm?
The case study that supports signing a star player now would be the New York Rangers. In Feb. 2018, then-general manager Jeff Gorton and then-president Glen Sather wrote a letter to the team’s fanbase pleading for patience, as the franchise planned to sell off some of its core players. Later that month, Rick Nash, J.T. Miller, Ryan McDonagh, and Michael Grabner were jettisoned, followed by Mats Zuccarello the following year.
If we’re trying to draw parallels (which we are), an argument could be made that Seattle has already gone through this “plead for patience” phase that the Rangers experienced in 2018 and 2019. Though Seattle is certainly less established in the league, and it’s debatable how integral the traded players would have been to the team’s long-term plans, six regular Kraken players were dealt at this year’s NHL Trade Deadline for a bevy of draft picks. So, consider that part done.
The next step for the Rangers was a bit surprising at the time. Just a few months after sending Zuccarello to Dallas, New York landed the biggest fish on the 2019 free agency market, signing superstar winger Artemi Panarin to a seven-year, $81.5 million contract. The move raised eye brows because the idea of signing the biggest available UFA seemed to contradict the rebuild that had been signaled so clearly just one year prior.
The Blueshirts immediately returned to the playoffs in 2019-20, missed the postseason in 20-21, and are currently knotted at 2-2 in their second-round series with the Carolina Hurricanes in this season’s playoffs.
So, there’s proof that signing a star player and building around him can actually work.
Of course, the Rangers got some fortuitous bounces along the way, like landing the second- and first-overall picks in back-to-back drafts, hitting on late first-round picks Filip Chytil and K’Andre Miller, and somehow stealing 2021 Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox from Carolina for just a second- and third-round pick. Oh, and having Igor Shesterkin develop into perhaps the game’s best goalie hasn’t hurt.
Looking again at the current situation with the Kraken, they seem to have hit on No. 2 overall pick Matty Beniers and are set to select No. 4 overall in July. So, some parallels are certainly there. Should they follow in the mold of the Rangers and go for that big fish this summer?
Why the Kraken should be patient in free agency
Good things come to those who wait. But will Kraken fans wait?
Whether it has been stated by the franchise or not, there has to be some internal pressure to field a competitive team quickly. The team sold out its season tickets in the blink of an eye for the first year, and there was certainly excitement around the shiny new product in 2021-22. Still, we can’t help wondering how long that excitement holds if the team is around the bottom of the league for the next few seasons.
Having said all that, there is plenty of evidence to support the case for holding off for one or even two more seasons before trying to land big-time UFA’s. Looking at teams like Tampa Bay and Carolina, the cores of those clubs are built around homegrown talent that was drafted and developed in house. Now the Canes are perennial contenders, and the Bolts appear to be marching toward a third consecutive Stanley Cup.
Francis was a big part of the building process for the Hurricanes, and he now is armed with 34 draft picks over the next three seasons. So could the long game be the route Seattle takes?
What will Seattle do?
If the Kraken can persuade a top-tier and a middle-tier free agent to come to Seattle this offseason, we believe they will dish out the money. Both at the NHL Trade Deadline and at the conclusion of the season, Francis made no bones about his intentions to be aggressive in free agency, and we believe this means taking a run at the Forsbergs and Gaudreaus of the world.
Here’s hoping he’s successful in landing the guys he wants and that some of the fortuitous bounces that the Rangers got will also happen for the Kraken.
Over the years we have created a Northwest-centric rooting guide for the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. In prior seasons we would breakdown all the teams with players that had ties to the area, like if they were born or raised in the Northwest or even if they played part of their junior career in the region. This year is different though. We have a team and a legitimate rooting interest for other NHL teams to do… well… poorly.
With the Seattle Kraken fan bias, I offer you up the official Kraken fans’ rooting guide for the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The rankings are listed from teams we are rooting against (No. 16) to the teams we are rooting to win the Stanley Cup (No. 1).
16. Nashville Predators
Reasons to root against them: As much as it pains me to say, the Predators are a team we Kraken fans will want to lose in the first round. The Kraken traded away Jeremy Lauzon to Nashville for their second-round draft pick for the upcoming 2022 NHL Entry Draft. If they go out in the first round, that draft pick will become the 49th overall draft pick. But if the Preds go on and win the Stanley Cup, it becomes the 64th pick overall. Shea Weber, Mike Cammalleri, and Roope Hintz were all selected 49th overall.
Reasons to root for them: Nashville is a fun city to follow in the playoffs. Their run in 2017 was one of the most exciting playoff runs in recent memory. Smashing cars, a packed Broadway, and Catfish Jake could all make a cameo in a Nashville playoff run.
15. Toronto Maple Leafs
Reasons to root against them: Like the reason we are rooting against Nashville, the Kraken acquired three draft picks from the Leafs at the trade deadline when they sent the first Seattle Kraken captain, Mark Giordano, and Colin Blackwell to Toronto. The Kraken own the Leafs’ second-round draft pick in the upcoming 2022 NHL Entry Draft. A first-round exit could mean that pick becomes as low as 53rd versus 64th in the case they win the Stanley Cup. The other two picks are for 2023 (second round) and 2024 (third round).
Reasons to root for them: Giordano was a great player for the Kraken, and he is your classic “old guy without a Cup.” To see former Kraken players make a deep playoff run sounds kind of fun.
14. Florida Panthers
Reasons to root against them: Calgary traded a second-round pick that they acquired from Florida to Seattle in the Calle Jarnkrok trade. Even if Florida were to lose in the first round, the lowest that pick would be is 56 overall.
Reasons to root for them: If the Panthers go on a run, maybe we can see it rain rats in South Florida.
13. Calgary Flames
Reasons to root against them: In the same Jarnkrok trade, the Flames also traded their fourth-round draft pick to Seattle. Fourth-round picks are a little more hit and miss compared to a second-round pick, but still the earlier Calgary loses the better the pick.
Reasons to root for them: While an earlier exit means a better pick, the opposite is also true. The better the Flames do, the deeper they will select, including for their first-round draft pick. So it might be worth it to see them succeed, knowing that their draft position will be worse off for it. Plus, we really liked Jarnkrok and would love to see him succeed.
12. Washington Capitals
Reasons to root against them: Closing out the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline deals, the Kraken traded Marcus Johansson for a fourth-round draft pick to the Capitals. An early exit for the Caps will mean that pick gets better for the Kraken.
Reasons to root for them: It is very easy to root for Mt. Vernon-born and Seattle Junior alum TJ Oshie in the playoffs. Heck, if the Caps win the Cup, hopefully he considers bringing it to the Puget Sound instead of Warroad this time.
11. Carolina Hurricanes
Reasons to root against them: It really comes down to how they treated John Forslund. Is this a good reason to actively root against a franchise? We don’t know, but we don’t care… Down with the Canes.
Reasons to root for them: Well, the team is darn fun for a bunch of jerks. Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and friend of the pod, Seth Jarvis are exciting players to watch, and the thought of a potential Freddie Andersen facing off against the Toronto Maple Leafs sounds compelling to us.
10. St. Louis Blues
Reasons to root against them: There’s no real reason to root against the Blues other than they have won a Stanley Cup recently, and they were not very nice to us Kraken fans when they visited Climate Pledge Arena in January.
Reasons to root for them: Vladimir Tarasenko seems like a very likable guy, and he is having a terrific season for the Blues. We would also like to see what Ryan O’Reilly could come up with if he wins another cup.
9. Pittsburgh Penguins
Reasons to root against them: I am sure there are a few Sidney Crosby haters still out there, but unless you are from the DC Metro or the western Pennsylvania area, there is not a whole lot to hate in Pittsburgh these days.
Reasons to root for them: It would be fun to see future Seattle Kraken player Bryan Rust win a Cup*. Just think what that will do for Seattle’s locker room next year.
* speculative
8. New York Rangers
Reasons to root against them: I really hate when the narrative is that the NHL wants the big market teams to make the Stanley Cup Final. I simply do not want to hear that blabber so an early exit would put that commentary to bed in a heartbeat.
Reasons to root for them: “The NHL would love to see the Rangers in the Stanley Cup Final.”
7. Minnesota Wild
Reasons to root against them: Just think how much Minn-utiae we would hear on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast from @DarrenFunBrown.
Reasons to root for them: They are fun, exciting, and I am pretty sure there is not a more likeable player in the league than Marc-Andre Fleury. Would be fun to see him hoist the Cup one more time, regardless of how much he ends up playing.
6. Edmonton Oilers
Reasons to root against them: For the chaos. An early exit will produce so many bad takes on what is “wrong with the Edmonton Oilers” (Exhibit A, B, and C) that it will provide hours of comedy, and who knows, maybe Connor McDavid will demand a trade. Plus, we aren’t huge Evander Kane fans.
Reasons to root for them: McDavid is still one of the most exciting players in the game, and it seems like we could get an Oilers-Flames conference semi-final matchup that would be entertaining to say the least.
5. Los Angeles Kings
Reasons to root against them: They are a Kraken division rival and are primed to be a powerhouse in the next couple years.
Reasons to root for them: They are a Kraken division rival and are primed to be a powerhouse in the next couple years. Any success in the playoffs this year will push their 2022 draft picks down the selection order.
4. Boston Bruins
Reasons to root against them: I think the city of Boston has won enough over the last 20 years don’t you think?
Reasons to root for them: The Bruins’ first-round draft pick this year belongs to the Anaheim Ducks, so much like the Kraken second-round picks, the better the Bruins do, the later the pick. If the Bruins do win the Cup, their first-round draft pick that now belongs to the Ducks will be the last selection in the first round.
3. Dallas Stars
Reasons to root against them: Is the fact that they play a lot of metal in the arena a good enough reason to root against them? OK, we gotta come clean here, we could not come up with a decent reason to root against them.
Reasons to root for them: They are playing Calgary in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and they have an “old man without a Cup” in Joe Pavelski.
2. Colorado Avalanche
Reasons to root against them: Can we just assume that Nazem Kadri will do some predatorial hit on somebody in the playoffs that will make him a heel to hockey fans outside of Colorado (Exhibits A, B, and C)?
Reasons to root for them: Seeing a fully operational lineup with healthy Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen sounds like must-watch hockey.
1. Tampa Bay Lightning
Reasons to root against them: They have won the last two Stanley Cups.
Reasons to root for them: They play the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.
We hope this helps guide your rooting interests throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and if you have a different take on why or why not root for a team, please leave a note in the comments section of this post.
As the Seattle Kraken wind down their inaugural season in the NHL, fans will undoubtedly start to turn their attention to the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. The Kraken were very active during their first NHL trade deadline in the middle of March when they made six trades that returned 10 draft picks over the next three years. Combined with three draft picks they accumulated before the start of the 2021-22 season, plus the standard seven picks per year that all teams get, the Kraken will have 34 picks over the next three NHL Entry Drafts.
Seattle also has the second most picks in the upcoming 2022 NHL Entry Draft with 12 picks.
To help better understand the value of those draft picks, we are going to spend some time framing how these picks translate to NHL players and when we might expect some of them to make it to the NHL. For the purposes of this analysis, we are excluding goalies from the data. Goalies have a very different timeline on their path to the NHL and will be the subject of a future story.
Long-term outlook by draft round
Every player’s path to the NHL is different, and some take longer to develop into regular NHL players. So it is not just about when they break into the league, but what they do when they get there. We will be using ‘games played’ as the metric to assess the long-term contributions of draft picks. Of course, there are other ways to evaluate a player’s ability and contribution, but for now, this metric will let us keep it simple.
Here is a look at the games played by draft round for players drafted from 2010 to 2017.
This chart signifies the importance and value of first-round draft picks as almost sure things to make the NHL. Returns for players selected in the second round tend to drop off quite a bit, as 28 percent have yet to play an NHL game. The steeper drop comes in the third round where close to 50 percent of the players have not and might not ever play in the NHL.
It is important to note that the data could be understating expectations since several players are still active and will continue to accumulate games played as their career continues. For example, Kraken forward Kole Lind was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in the second round of the 2017 draft. He has only played in 20 career NHL games and is poised to be a regular in Seattle’s lineup next year.
It is not a perfect projection, but directionally, we feel this is a good indicator on setting the expectations for eventual returns from draft picks.
This also does not mean that players taken later than the third round are useless. Johnny Gaudreau, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Jaccob Slavin were all fourth-round picks that have played over 300 games in the NHL. The chart should just drive the point home that the more picks you have, even in the later rounds, the better your odds that you may find the next John Klingberg (fifth round), Brendan Gallagher (fifth), or Mark Stone (sixth).
First season expectations
It is also important to evaluate when we should expect a drafted player in the NHL. It is rare that we will see players drafted in the summer and then playing in the NHL the following season. In fact, there are usually fewer than five players drafted that play more than 25 games the very next season.
Here is a look at the players that made the jump to the NHL immediately after their draft year.
Based on this information, it is safe to assume that we will not be seeing any of the Kraken’s four second-round draft picks playing in Seattle next season. But the question is, when can we expect them to play in the NHL?
We looked at when players “make it” in the NHL by determining when a player plays his first 25-plus-game season in relation to his draft year.
As expected, players taken in later rounds take a bit longer to break into the NHL compared to earlier rounds. For first rounders, the biggest spike of players (57 players) breaking into the NHL comes in the second season after their draft year but years three (44 players) and four (40 players) still have a lot of first-round draft picks breaking into the NHL. Second-round draft picks tend to break into the NHL in seasons four (39 players) and five (34 players) in relation to their draft year.
This should temper some expectations on when we will see the likes of Ryker Evans (second-round selection in 2021) and all the other future second-round draft picks putting on the Kraken jersey.
Ron Francis draft track record
There is a general feeling in the hockey world that Ron Francis drafts well. Sebastian Aho and Jaccob Slavin are often the poster boys for this belief in Francis’ drafting abilities, but how does he do across all draft rounds compared to his peers?
If we isolate the Carolina Hurricanes draft picks while Francis was the general manager, we can compare his drafted players with the rest of the league in that same timeframe.
This is a relatively small sample size, but you can see that Francis’ first-round draft picks might have under-performed a bit compared to the rest of the league. But across the rest of the draft, he does better than the rest of the league. This should be encouraging for the Kraken who have 11 picks after the first round in this upcoming draft.
It is also worth noting that two of Francis’ picks are about to jump tiers. Both Jake Bean (first round, 2016) and Morgan Geekie (third round, 2017) are expected to bump into the 101 to 200 games tier this week.
The draft pick outlook
Francis’ track record is solid, and the early evaluations of the Kraken draft picks selected last summer have been encouraging. Kraken fans should also feel good about the bounty of picks accumulated at the trade deadline, but remember that it can take time for players selected to become regulars in the NHL.
Our long national nightmare (the NHL’s Christmas break) is over. With the omicron variant of COVID-19 spreading like wildfire through NHL locker rooms, the league and its teams stumbled into what ended up being a prolonged break from action, as team after team shut down with too many players in protocol to compete. With seemingly no other choice, the NHL reluctantly decided to give players a longer-than-expected hiatus. Now, the NHL is back after what feels like [insert “Old Lady from Titanic saying ‘It’s been 84 years’” gif here], so we thought it would be a good time to take stock in what the Seattle Kraken have going on and their outlook for the rest of the season.
Short-term obstacle: COVID absences
Defense situation looked temporarily dire for Kraken
First, we will look at the state of the team in the immediate. The Kraken were certainly one of the clubs running on fumes as they entered the break, with defensemen Jamie Oleksiak, Carson Soucy, and Adam Larsson all testing positive in three consecutive days. Upon returning from the break, Ryan Donato, Mason Appleton, and Vince Dunn were added to that list.
Along with the three blueliners already out, Dunn’s exclusion from the lineup made things appear for a moment like Seattle would not be able to field a full defense corps as it returned to game action.
Thankfully, Soucy and Oleksiak returned to practice on Tuesday, and neither seemed to have been impacted too dramatically by their respective bouts with the virus. Larsson could be cleared to return in the coming days as well.
“Almost a little better timing for me, not really having to miss a game,” Soucy said on Tuesday. “Kind of just come back in when the team comes back. Would have liked maybe one or two more skates, but it’s a good way to get back into it with a copule games in a row here.”
Soucy’s point about timing rings mostly true for Oleksiak and Larsson as well. If Larsson can return in the next couple days, the extended holiday break really will have saved the Kraken a lot of man-games lost on the blue line. Thanks to the extra time, it appears coach Dave Hakstol will have at least three pairs of defensemen available to him for Wednesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers, assuming nothing changes throughout the day.
Some COVID challenges remain for forward group as well
There are also issues up front for the Kraken. In the short term, Donato—who had scored in three-straight games prior to the break—is in protocol, as is Appleton. Colin Blackwell and Riley Sheahan are back to fill depth roles, but Blackwell indicated that COVID took a lot out of him, so it may take him some time to get back up to speed.
One big positive (from being COVID negative) is that Yanni Gourde is expected to see his first game action since Dec. 9 on Wednesday. Obviously, getting one of the team’s top two centers back should give the Kraken a lift.
Long-term obstacle: no Turbo
The long-term picture got more murky over the break, as fan favorite and heart-and-soul winger Brandon Tanev was diagnosed with a season-ending ACL injury.
When Tanev was hit by William Lagesson in the closing minutes of Seattle’s Dec. 18 game against Edmonton, he was essentially carried off the ice and down the tunnel, putting almost no weight on his right leg. He was seen flexing his knee as his teammates propelled him toward the bench, and in that moment, you could just tell that it was something serious.
The team then played it even more coy than usual with announcing any kind of timeline, so the result was unsurprising. Still, it doesn’t make it any easier to accept the idea that the forward who has endeared himself to fans more than any other player will not don a Kraken uniform again this season.
Tanev’s absence will be felt in a lot of ways. Players like Blackwell, Sheahan, Alexander True, and Kole Lind, who have all been in and out of the Kraken lineup at times this season, will be expected to help fill the void left by Tanev. None of those players do the things that Tanev does, though, with his lightning-quick speed and unrelenting forecheck, so Turbo’s absence will require an adjustment from the entire team.
State of the Seattle Kraken
Even before Tanev’s injury, the Kraken were in last place in the Pacific Division going into the break. They trailed the Vancouver Canucks for seventh place by seven points, and they were a whopping 13 points out of the playoff picture.
Can Seattle get back in the playoff race?
Pessimists and believers in simple math would say no, they most likely cannot. As of Wednesday, the Kraken were down to a 0.1 percent chance to make the playoffs, according to MoneyPuck.com, the lowest percentage of any team in the NHL, while HockeyViz has them at 8.2 percent. As Lloyd Christmas once said, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”
Heck, even the fact that the Canucks are still in seventh place despite being on an active six-game win streak is telling of just how hard it’s going to be for Seattle to get back in this thing.
Optimists will remind you of the St. Louis Blues in 2018-19, when that club went from last in the NHL on New Year’s Day to Stanley Cup winners in June. What happened for that group was a coaching change (no, we are not recommending Seattle make a change in its inaugural season) and a revelation in the goal crease, as Jordan Binnington burst onto the scene and carried his team to glory.
But the circumstances were quite different for that Blues team. They were a veteran club that had made the playoffs six of the previous seven seasons and had added Ryan O’Reilly in the offseason. The Kraken, on the other hand, are a young expansion team.
Goaltending improvement could turn this around
A Blues-esque goaltending improvement is what could actually unlock sustained success for the Kraken, but it would have to come from their existing netminders. It’s no secret that Kraken goaltending has been among the worst in the league through December in most metrics. With those struggles came visible slumps in play from Seattle when soft goals would go in practically every night.
We’re still hopeful this can turn around, however, and we still believe that the Kraken have an excellent tandem in the crease. Chris Driedger played well in games leading to the holiday break, and Philipp Grubauer, who took a long time to adjust when he first arrived in Colorado in 2018-19, will figure it out. He has played well below his career numbers to this point, so improvement for him is bound to happen.
With their netminders hopefully recharged after a long pause, will that improvement come now? We will get a good idea in the coming days, as Seattle dives back in head first with three games in four days to turn over the calendar year.
