The Seattle Kraken were back at the Kraken Community Iceplex this week. After they wrapped up their first season Sunday in Winnipeg, it was time Monday and Tuesday to pack up their belongings from their lockers before heading back to their summer homes. Clean out day had a “last day of school” feel, although instead of making sure everyone got their yearbooks signed, the players met with the media and had exit interviews with general manager Ron Francis and coach Dave Hakstol.
“There are some underlying themes that we want to take advantage of over the summer and that we want to have the right mindset for coming back in training camp,” Hakstol said about the exit interviews. “But the majority of this time of year, two days after the end of the regular season, it’s a couple of key points for each individual that will likely lead to further conversation over the summer.”
While Hakstol wasn’t keen to share the details he discussed with certain players, there were noticeable themes from the players that met with the media.
To a man, there was a disappointment in how the season played out.
“It’s always mixed feelings,” defenseman Adam Larsson said. “We’ve had a long year emotionally and we didn’t get the result we wanted, so that was tough. But with that said, I think everybody has really enjoyed the time here and just seeing everything with the fans, how they pushed us for the whole year, even on tough stretches.”
Adam Larsson was impressed with Seattle Kraken fans in year one. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Larsson’s last point about the fans was another theme that ran through the two days.
Despite the record and place in the standings, Kraken fans showed up all season. No matter what the score was, the building was packed and the fans were loud. It’s a remarkable connection between a city and a sports franchise.
It’s an easy pop for an athlete to praise the local fans, but it was so persuasive this week that you couldn’t help but feel the Kraken players were genuine in their appreciation they had for their fanbase.
“The biggest highlight for me is just, obviously, the fans,” Jordan Eberle said. “They were unbelievable. I don’t think I’ve played in front of a fanbase that just really got behind the team through wins and losses. That was the biggest thing. I mean, I’ve been at teams where fans have been amazing, but you lose and it goes the other way, and they didn’t do that here. I think they’re so excited to have a team, we want to try and win for them.”
Feelings of optimism for coming season
The team found some consistency over the second half of the season. There were still struggles, but the second-half improvement has the team feeling positive about what’s to come.
“First season is behind us,” Yanni Gourde said. “It’s not something we can just forget about it, we’re going to learn from it and we’re going to move forward and we’re gonna get better from past experience, and that’s what we’re gonna do next year. We’re gonna come in, we know each other, we know what works, we know what doesn’t work, we’re gonna move forward and get better every single day.”
It’s easy to be optimistic days after the season ended. Seattle’s record is back to 0-0-0 and nobody is going to predict more losing.
Kraken forward Yanni Gourde is optimistic about season two. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
But the Seattle players had some reason for that optimism.
Part of it was the way the team played over the later part of the season and that when they reconvene for training camp in September, they won’t have to spend as much time learning each other. There’s also the promise and expectation of roster improvements this summer from either trades or free agent acquisitions.
“I think every year you want to make the playoffs and that’s our goal.” Francis said. “Our goal is to get better each and every year. [From] starting the year to the end of the year we got better and we’ll continue that next year. It’s not an easy league but we certainly want to add the pieces we think will give us a chance to contend for the playoffs next year for sure.”
The arrival of rookie Matty Beniers also helps with the optimism.
Seattle’s first ever draft pick, taken second overall during the 2020 NHL Draft, arrived after the University of Michigan was eliminated at the NCAA Frozen Four. He played just ten games, but his impact was noticeable, and in a short time he scored nine points (3 goals, 6 assists) to start his career.
Veteran players were impressed, Hakstol and Francis were impressed, and now the challenge for the 19-year-old will be to handle the rigors of a full 82-game season.
“I’m expecting a little bit more intensity next season going against guys,” Beniers said. “I think it was good to get my toes wet and see what kind of game it is, see how fast it is and the physicality of it and get a little confidence that I can play here and contribute to the team.”
Kraken goalies looking for more consistency
Part of the second-half turnaround was the play of goalies Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger. The tandem struggled early to mesh with the system, and that led to some ugly goals against.
The consistency started to come together as the season went on, however, and if that trend can continue, the Kraken will have more confidence in the guys in net.
“I think after Christmas, that’s where we started to feel comfortable with each other,” Grubauer said. “It’s not just the defense. It’s the goalies too, it’s the forwards as well. It’s a whole team effort usually and we played some incredible games and obviously some games we need to improve, but I think next year the goal is to find that consistency.”
Grubauer and Driedger will have to find that consistency with a new goalie coach. Francis began his press conference by stating that Andrew Allen’s contract with the club would not be renewed beyond this season. The timing of the announcement was interesting because Allen had been spotted on the ice working with Grubauer earlier in the day. It also wasn’t entirely surprising, though, after the mixed results for the netminders that Allen oversaw this season.
Both goalies still have hockey to play this year, which is why Grubauer was on the ice with Allen and Larsson Tuesday. Grubauer will be heading to Finland to play for Germany in the IIHF World Championship, while Driedger will represent Team Canada. Both praised the other and got along but may have to face each other in international play this summer.
Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer will be playing for Team Germany this spring. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Kraken will add a top prospect
By finishing with the third worst record in the NHL, Seattle can do no worse than the fifth overall pick at the NHL Draft Lottery on May 10. That should yield another top prospect into the system.
“We acquired some draft capital,” Francis said of the team’s many moves at the NHL Trade Deadline. “So that gives us the opportunity to look at different things. Whether it’s moving picks for potential players and trades with teams that are up against the cap and it allows us maybe to parlay those picks and move up higher in the draft. Based on where we finished, we’re going to pick one through five and we might be able to get a guy in the draft that can step in and play in our lineup next year.”
Firebirds are a go
After splitting their AHL affiliate Charlotte Checkers with the Florida Panthers, Seattle will have its own affiliate next season with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. That means that Francis and the Kraken will have to fill all the coaching and support staff for that team to play next season.
Francis also indicated that because the Firebirds arena won’t be ready at the beginning of the AHL season, the team could start in Seattle. That could mean practices at the Kraken Community Iceplex and also some early games being played locally.
The Kraken are still working out the details on where those games would be played but they’re hoping it would be at Climate Pledge Arena.
The NHL regular season is winding down, and the Seattle Kraken are closing in on a top-five pick in the NHL Draft, thanks to several recent organic losses. In this episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, John, Andy, and Darren recap the last few Kraken games up through Tuesday’s loss to the Vancouver Canucks. In fact, they began recording this episode just minutes after that game ended.
After plenty of Kraken talk, you’ll get a WHL Update from WHL correspondent, Andy Eide. Then you’ll get a Western Conference playoff picture update from John.
After that, Darren surprises the guys with an unexpected “Let’s Get Quizzical.”
Following Quizzical, the guys transition to Weekly One-Timers, Then Tweets of the Week and SOH’s Three Stars.
Longtime Seattle resident Vaughan Rody will ref his final game on Wednesday at Climate Pledge Arena
For Vaughan Rody, Hockey is “religion” in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Even when life led Rody to other places, he felt like hockey should be a part of his life.
His route to practicing his religion was through refereeing. It’s a journey that involved a giant leap of faith, a few lucky breaks, and some cherished memories for the longtime Lake Stevens, Washington resident.
Rody will officiate his final game in the National Hockey League on Wednesday when the Seattle Kraken take on the Colorado Avalanche at Climate Pledge Arena, concluding a 22-year career as a linesman.
“I started refereeing like most kids do for extra money, and really just to stay in the game.” Rody said. “Then I realized I was a good enough skater and had a knowledge of the rules and some ability. You quickly work through the ranks and get some people that really believe in you.”
Rody began officiating when he was 14, picking up youth hockey games while working a “fantastic job” as a site supervisor for the Forks Renewal Corporation as a City of Winnipeg employee. Life was good and stable, but it didn’t involve hockey.
Rody left that job when he was 24 to become a referee in the Western Hockey League, based in Seattle.
That didn’t quite sit well with his father.
“I know for a fact that my dad worked at the railroad for probably 30 years, and I was making more money than he was at the time,” Rody said. “His young kid gets this fantastic job and all of a sudden I’m deciding that I’m going to take a leave of absence to go try to find a job there’s only 35 in the world of, it didn’t really sit that well with him.”
The gamble to move not only to a different city, but to a different country, paid off.
To make ends meet with a meager WHL referee salary, Rody worked at Boeing in Everett as an inspector on the 777 program in the mornings and officiated WHL games at night. A common night involved Rody returning home from a game in Spokane at 1 a.m. only to wake up at 4 a.m. to clock into his shift at Boeing.
Rody made his NHL debut, and walked away from his job at Boeing, when he was hired as a full-time NHL linesman. He skipped a common step of officiating in the American Hockey League after graduating from junior hockey.
Now that his NHL officiating chapter has closed, Rody has an Amazon delivery franchise to tend to — one he became the owner of about a year ago — and still runs his Pro Edge Power Skating program that was founded in 2007.
Retirement won’t be too sleepy for the effervescent “kid” from Manitoba who walked away from certainty to make his dream a reality.
But Rody will still take some time to reflect on his gamble that paid off and the journey it sent him on in front of friends and family.
“I think with this game when you’re in this business for such a long time, you realize that this is all about your family,” Rody said. “And it’s all about the people that have had a hand in making me or allowing me to have this dream. … Those people [that support you], when they get a chance to share in your accomplishments and they get a chance to kind of share in your success and see what you do for work, those are the most meaningful moments.”
What’s it like seeing players and coaches show you so much respect in your final season?
VR: I think what happens is people see that in hockey we have a pretty amazing tradition at the handshakes, and when you’ve been in this league as long as I have, I don’t really know the what the whole thing is, but the bottom line remains that there’s a lot of respect from the players to you as an official. They do a tremendous job of kind of showing their respect through the handshakes and the little shows and gestures like that.
For them to take the time, to take a moment to reflect on your career and wish you all the best [feels great]. At he end of the day, you don’t make it 20 20 some years by accident. I think when they come over and shake your hand, they take time out of their schedule and in their day to do that, I think it’s just such a show of respect and I think it just legitimizes what they think of you in your career.
Is your route a traditional path to becoming an NHL official? How has that changed over the years?
VR: That’s really changed. You know, when I first started, the skillset was that you became a referee, and that’s changed over the last few years. Because now a lot of our young guys, they’re drafted, they’re playing in the American Hockey League, they’re not quite good enough to make it to the NHL, so their careers kind of fizzle out. But they’re great skaters, they’re great athletes, and then the NHL takes shine to them with the NHL training program.
That’s the big change over the last six-to-eight years. Previously you would play and then you would start refereeing at 15-16 years old. And then you would learn and hone the skill to become an official through time and that’s kind of how it was back then.
What’s the biggest difference between officiating a junior game and an NHL game?
VR: Oh, it’s huge. There’s a difference between dealing with kids and dealing with men. You’re dealing with adults in the National Hockey League and there’s a different way to communicate with them. There’s a different way to get along. There are a lot of people in hockey that think you can bully people around, but nobody’s intimidated anymore, yelling and screaming at each other doesn’t really work. I think the biggest difference between junior and pro hockey is simply communication.
When you say communication, that’s just a matter of being able to communicate like adults?
VR: When you’re dealing with pros, no one has to tell them to go and train or tell them to go to bed early. No one has to tell them to shut the TV off, shut their phones off. They’re pros at what they do for a reason. You don’t get to the NHL by accident, as a player, as an official, or as a coach. You don’t get there by accident.
I think you have to learn to become a pro. You have to learn the basic skills. What separates somebody from being good to being great? And no matter what those tangibles are, you’ve got to figure them out for yourself. It has to be something that you find within yourself.
The most important thing I think, in officiating between junior hockey and the pros is making sure you understand the difference between abuse and emotion. You’ve got to be able to sift through that and you’ve got to be able to work through that. You have to be to able to bark back at them and calm them down a little bit and then they have to trust that you’re going to do the right thing for the game. Because as officials, that’s our job. We serve the game.
What were the WHL games like back then to ref?
VR: They were a lot rougher. I can tell you. Even back in the day, they were probably a little bit more difficult to do than the pro style of hockey. I think that’s what gave us all of our experience. You would have line brawls, you would have fights, and you weren’t sure if guys were going to go in the stands and fight. You didn’t know. It was like a free-for-all back in the day. It was a different game. There was a lot more violence in the game back then.
And the game has changed. So the Western Hockey League, the way it was played, prepared you for anything. It prepared you for the NHL. People can’t really behave like that, you know, they’re called on the carpet. There’s an image that the NHL wants to portray. And the Western Hockey League, not that they didn’t have an image, but anybody could fight anybody at that opportunity or that moment. It wasn’t just heavyweight vs. heavyweight, there were 20-year-olds fighting 16-year-olds and that’s a huge age difference, size difference, and mentality difference between those two. You have to be aware because the game expected you to make everybody safe.
What’s the most meaningful game you’ve officiated?
VR: My most meaningful game is probably the All-Star Game in Nashville [in 2016]. I had a chance to bring probably 14-16 family members and friends to the game. The NHL is first class. They took care of everything. You get an opportunity to kind of showcase what we do for a business night in and night out to your friends. They really look upon the NHL as a really exciting place to be and then they come to work with you and they witness how cool your job is. They witness how first-class the organization is and how you’re treated and you get a chance to see their excitement through their eyes.
Those are my most meaningful games, that one and probably my 1000th game, but again, you don’t get to 1000 and you don’t get to game No. 1 without a group of people helping. You get a chance to share those moments with your family and friends. It makes it really, really memorable.
What’s it like raising a family as an NHL official?
VR: Well, it’s tough. I went through a divorce. It was a tough situation for my kids and a tough situation for my wife and a tough situation for me. You’re not home a lot and it’s tough on a family. I’m happily remarried and in retirement, part of my speech I’m going to thank my ex-wife, she’s the mother of my kids and she played a huge role in this and this doesn’t happen without her. There still needs to be an acknowledgement of her effort.
What’s next for you, Vaughan?
VR: When you’re from Canada and you’re in athletics, having the opportunity to work in the National Hockey League is and has been a tremendous honor. And I’m excited about it. I’m excited about my career. I’m proud of it. But now I’m owning a business, having $180,000 payroll every two weeks and having 80-some employees and running a business that’s doing $6 million a year annually. This isn’t my expertise.
That’s what’s next. I’m proud of the NHL, but I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished at Amazon and this new chapter of my life. I’m really proud to be a little kid from Winnipeg, Manitoba making it to the NHL, but I think I might be more proud of running this business because me being a pretty good athlete was kind of expected. This is a real new venture and it’s something I’m extremely excited about.
It’s been an eventful week for the Seattle Kraken and their fans, as No. 2 overall draft pick Matty Beniers signed his entry-level contract and made his NHL debut against the Calgary Flames. The news generated a ton of buzz around Seattle, and Beniers lived up to the hype in his first official showing. The Kraken have also played four games since the last episode, so John, Andy, and Darren break down those contests before moving to a rare “Mail Bag” segment, which got some great participation from listeners.
After closing the mail bag, Darren discusses the NCAA Frozen Four, which ended with Denver University as national champion. He also talks about the outcome of the Hobey Baker Award and what is happening with players leaving college to sign in the NHL.
Eventually, the guys shift to segments, which this week feature Bad Boys, You Don’t See That Every Day, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
For months, the talk around the Kraken campfire has been rife with speculation that touted prospect and No. 2 overall pick, Matty Beniers, would sign with Seattle as soon as his college season ended. On Sunday, the waiting and speculation came to an end when the standout 19-year-old center tweeted a graphic of himself skating on Elliott Bay, with the caption “See you soon.”
The Kraken PR team followed up Beniers’ tweet with a tweet of their own, confirming that the deal was done.
“We’re excited to welcome Matty to our organization,” said Kraken general manager Ron Francis, via press release. “He capped off a productive career at Michigan with a trip to the Frozen Four and has impressed our staff over the past couple of years with his leadership and strong two-way game. We’re looking forward to working with him as he takes the next step in his development.”
Added Beniers, “It’s truly an honor to join the Kraken organization, and I can’t wait to get started.”
It is unclear at this time when Beniers will debut, but it would make a lot of sense for him to join the team for practice on Monday at Kraken Community Iceplex, then quickly hit the road for back-to-back games in Calgary and Winnipeg.
Beniers is just four days removed from the end of his sophomore season at the University of Michigan. His star-studded Wolverines lost 3-2 in overtime to the Denver Pioneers on Thursday in an exciting NCAA Frozen Four semifinal.
“Although we fell short of our goal, I loved my time with Michigan and am looking forward to the next step in my journey,” Beniers said. “Being drafted last summer was surreal, and I’m excited to get to Seattle.”
Signing Beniers now means the Kraken will burn the first year of his three-year, entry-level contract, so he will become a restricted free agent following the 2023-24 season. Being that there are only 10 games left, the team surely would have preferred to hold off on bringing him into the fold until after the season. But as Francis mentioned just prior to the NHL Trade Deadline, top prospects generally want to get beyond their ELC’s as soon as possible and onto more lucrative deals. So, burning that first year is the cost of doing business with elite, young players.
A 6-foot-1, 174-pound center that hails from Hingham, Mass., Beniers went through the US National Team Development Program before joining the Wolverines as a true freshman. He won a gold medal at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship as the youngest skater on Team USA, then played with pros at the IIHF World Championship, where the Americans took home a bronze medal. Beniers also had the honor of participating in the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February and was especially dynamic in a thrilling three-on-three overtime period in a quarterfinal loss to Slovakia.
Beniers had an exceptional two-year college career and progressed nicely between his freshman and sophomore seasons. He led Michigan and the entire Big Ten with 43 points (20-23—43) in 36 games this season after notching 24 points in 24 games last season. As an 18- and 19-year-old in the NCAA, he was playing against players several years older than him, and he succeeded every step of the way.
His game is responsible at both ends of the ice, but don’t expect him to light it up offensively right away. We think that will take a couple seasons at least, as he adjusts to the pace and skill of the NHL. Still, he has the maturity and physical ability to be an effective everyday player immediately.
The good news… correction, the GREAT news is that Joey Daccord is back on Sound Of Hockey for his second appearance, and he is once again electrifying! The bad news is that Darren has COVID. But that’s ok, because he has a great time talking to Joey (via Zoom, obvi), and that makes everything better.
The boys are confident that you will love this second interview with Daccord, who shares some awesome stories about playing in Charlotte, getting called up to Seattle, and being part of the Kraken’s home opener.
Before the interview, John, Andy, and Darren recap the Kraken games against Los Angeles, Vegas, and Dallas, then give some general NHL news. After the interview, they shift the show into segments, with the first being an NCAA Frozen Four edition of Games on the Radar. They then move to Goalie Gear Corner, Weekly One-Timers, Tweets of the Week, and Three Stars.
It’s a battle this week, but this show is a very fun one.
