On June 28, 2024, Macklin Celebrini will (in all likelihood) hear his name called by the San Jose Sharks as the first overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. The Sharks will have the opportunity to make this pick from the stage at Sphere Las Vegas because it won the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery on Tuesday.
While Celebrini does not have quite the generational talent level of a player like Connor Bedard, he is a high-end, organization-changing player any team would love to have. Celebrini, who played for the Jr. Sharks in 2019-20 while his father worked for the Golden State Warriors, will soon take his talents back to Northern California.
Of local interest, the lottery determined that the Seattle Kraken will be picking No. 8 in the first round. Seattle entered the night with a 6.0 percent chance of landing the top overall section, a 6.2 percent chance of securing the second pick, and a .2 percent chance of ending up at No. 3. Seattle had a 54.4 percent chance of sticking at pick No. 8, while it had a 30.0 percent chance of moving down to pick No. 9 and a 3.2 percent chance of falling to No. 10 overall.
So, picking No. 8 was the most likely outcome for Seattle. We’ll get into the options that could be available to Seattle in that position momentarily.
As it turns out, the lottery did not move any team from its default draft position. San Jose had the best odds of landing the top pick to begin with. But the lottery guaranteed the Sharks will be able to add another building block in Celebrini. Unfortunately, Seattle will have to contend with that in the Pacific Division (along with whoever Anaheim picks at No. 3) for years to come.
Following today’s events, the top half of the 2024 NHL Draft first round will proceed as follows:
San Jose
Chicago
Anaheim
Columbus
Montreal
Utah
Ottawa
Seattle
Calgary
New Jersey
Buffalo
Philadelphia
Minnesota
San Jose (from Pittsburgh)
Detroit
St. Louis
How the Draft Lottery works
Generally speaking, the NHL Draft is organized so that the teams with worse records get better selections. This year, the Sharks had the league’s worst record, followed by the Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, and so forth. The default order of each round has the Sharks picking first, followed by the Blackhawks, Ducks, etc.
That said, the order of selections at the top of the first round of the NHL Draft is determined by a lottery system. The sixteen teams that do not qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs all have the opportunity to move up from their default selection a maximum of 10 spots in the draft order.
The lottery consists of two drawings of ping pong balls. When a team’s number is drawn in the first drawing, the team moves up 10 spots as far as the first overall pick. For example, if the Ducks had been drawn, Anaheim would have moved to No. 1 overall. However, if Minnesota had been drawn, it would have moved up from No. 13 to No. 3.
The second lottery drawing is a similar process for a move up to and including the second overall pick. If, for example, Montreal were drawn, it would have moved up from its No. 5 default slot to No. 2. St. Louis, if selected, would have moved from No. 16 to No. 6.
The NHL held the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery Tuesday afternoon in a small 12-by-24-foot conference room at NHL Network Studios in Secaucus, New Jersey. The results were later broadcast on NHL Network and ESPN.
It all happens in this literal 12 x 24 room, then we stay in here until the Draft reveal broadcast ends pic.twitter.com/aoKEfghyR0
Worse teams not only have a higher default pick, but also higher odds of winning the lottery. Tankathon compiled the pre-draft odds of each team landing at any particular pick as follows:
As noted above, Seattle entered the night with the No. 8 pick, had a 12.4 percent chance of moving up, and a 33.2 percent chance of sliding back. As we now know, Seattle stuck at pick No. 8.
What could Seattle do with the No. 8 pick?
In February, we published our 2024 Sound Of Hockey Big Board (mid-season edition). It was a composite ranking of 2024 NHL Draft-eligible prospects based on reputable draft analyst and public scouting service lists. Since that time, some “final” draft lists have started to emerge, including Central Scouting’s final rankings. There is also a new TSN list based on Bob McKenzie’s survey of league sources.
Based on all of that information, here are a few names that stand out to us that may be available to Seattle at pick No. 8, should the team ultimately make that pick.
Tij Iginla
Player profile: Forward | 6’0″ | 185 lbs | left shot | Canada
Notes: Most points by a first-time draft-eligible NCAA defenseman ever; five points in seven 2024 World Junior Championship games; No. 11 on mid-season Sound Of Hockey Big Board.
Video: Buium is No. 28 in white in the video below
Zayne Parekh
Player profile: Defense | 6’0″ | 181 lbs | right shot | Canada
Notes: T-12th in Liiga all-time in points in a season by an under-18 player. Played at 2024 World Junior Championship, scoring two points. No. 9 on the mid-season Sound Of Hockey Big Board.
Video: Helenius is No. 91 in yellow in the video below
Berkly Catton
Player profile: Forward | 5’11” | 163 lbs | left shot | Canada
Notes: Leading scorer on the U.S. National Team Development Program in 2023-24; leading goal scorer for the Program all-time; No. 6 on the mid-season Sound Of Hockey Big Board.
Video: Eiserman is No. 34 in white in the video 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.
While none of what Francis said was particularly surprising, we did take away that this was a difficult decision for the always cautious and guarded GM, and we aren’t convinced he wanted to make this move but may have felt he had no choice based on how the season played out. Francis indicated that he didn’t make his final decision until Sunday and met with Hakstol to inform him on Monday morning in Seattle, calling it “an extremely sad day.”
#SeaKraken Ron Francis said he didn’t come to this final decision to move on from Dave Hakstol until yesterday.
“It’s never an easy day, it’s never an easy decision,” Francis said. “We let a guy who’s a good coach and a really good person go, and it’s not easy. But, you know, looking at the organization and just looking at the season, I thought we were a little more inconsistent than we had been, a few too many losing streaks, and losing streaks of significant numbers. And so we just felt it was time to try a new voice here.”
Francis made it clear he didn’t think everything that happened this season was Hakstol’s fault. Instead, he commended the coach for his “thorough” approach and reiterated that there were externalities that were outside of Hakstol’s control.
“We had guys that had off seasons, we had guys that missed a lot of time, so there were a lot of challenges to the roster as well.”
Where do the Kraken go from here?
One thing this move does is crank up the heat on Francis to find success next season. Historically, a GM tends to get one coach firing before the attention turns in their direction. Francis has shown he is taking a slower “build from within” type of approach, which eventually worked in Carolina after he left there. It’s a good approach for the long-term health of the organization, but will Seattle’s ownership be patient enough to let some of Francis’ draft picks arrive and become impact players? Or will there be more pressure moving forward to contend?
So, while we think Hakstol was a fine first pick, the next hiring needs to be the perfect fit, and it needs to be somebody who can move the needle right away. Francis said the process to find that next bench boss starts immediately, but there’s no “definite timeline” for a hiring.
In our previous article about the firing, we threw out a few names we thought could be candidates to replace Hakstol, and we did ask Francis what attributes he thought were important, but he declined to fully comment on that.
“If I answer that question, it’s going to be tied to ‘this is what I didn’t think Dave was doing,’ so I’d rather not do that at this point.”
Fair enough. If we were to guess what the team will be looking for moving forward, it will be somebody who can be a players’ coach, one who fits into the dressing room and can have strong relationships with the players. The next coach needs to be able to hold players accountable while showing fairness in approach (meaning, if a player is playing, they get rewarded, and vice versa).
We also do not think the head coach is the only “change” this organization will need. The team announced this morning that assistant coach Paul McFarland will also not return. And Francis mentioned the roster on many occasions Monday, He said in clear terms, “We have to make some changes to the roster and try and get back to where we want to get to next season.”
How the roster changes look remain to be seen, but there’s no doubt Francis will try to uncover some scoring from elsewhere in the league this summer.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
The Seattle Kraken have relieved Dave Hakstol of his head coaching duties, the team announced on Monday.
“I thank Dave for his hard work and dedication to the Kraken franchise,” said Kraken general manager Ron Francis via a press release. “Following our end-of-the-season review, we have decided to make a change at our head coach position. These decisions are never easy, but we feel that this is a necessary step to help ensure our team continues to improve and evolve. Dave is a good coach and a terrific person. We wish him and his family all the best. We will begin our search for the Kraken’s next head coach immediately.”
The team also announced that assistant coach Paul McFarland will not return.
Over the past week, it became clear that Francis was considering making a change behind the bench. The potential for such a move came into focus when at his end-of-season presser—which he performed solo, instead of with Hakstol by his side like last season—Francis skirted around a real answer on whether Hakstol would be back for 2024-25.
“It’s part of the process we go through now, right?” Francis said. “Meeting with the coaching staff, the management team, all that stuff, and assessing, and so we’re still in that process now.”
That sparked speculation amongst local media about the future of the only head coach the Kraken organization has ever had.
Hakstol’s tenure ended after 246 regular-season games behind the bench, plus 14 Stanley Cup Playoff games. He had a 107-112-27 record and most notably led his team to an unprecedented turnaround between the first and second seasons in franchise history with a 40-point improvement from 2021-22 to 2022-23.
That got the Kraken into the playoffs last season, where they defeated the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in seven games before coming up one game shy of the Western Conference Finals, losing to Dallas in a heartbreaking Game 7. Hakstol was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year after that run but lost out to Boston’s Jim Montgomery.
Things went in the opposite direction this season, and the Kraken took a step back, finishing well outside of the playoff picture with 81 points, a 19-point drop from 2022-23. They had a legitimate chance to qualify as late March, but a slow start to the season, no scoring punch, and several long losing streaks ultimately did Seattle in
Unfortunately for Hakstol, this was necessary
Through most of the season, I denied the plausibility of such a firing, largely because general manager Ron Francis signed Hakstol to a two-year contract extension prior to this season. That deal starts next season, so with Hakstol getting the pink slip now, Seattle is on the hook to pay him for two more years (unless it can work out some contract-sharing deal with a different team that might hire him in the future).
Even so, as the campaign unfolded, and the players began mailing it in down the stretch, the writing on the wall got bolder and bolder. In the past week, I became certain that a change was coming.
Speaking personally, I wasn’t rooting for this, because I’ve genuinely enjoyed my interactions with Dave Hakstol. He has never been anything other than respectful and professional toward me, and he has answered every one of my questions over the last three seasons with grace and thoughtfulness, even when I asked stupid ones.
Heck, Hakstol even played along with some of my more outlandish questions, like when I went down a rabbit hole asking him about his favorite Sarah McLachlan songs. That’s a story for another day, but the point is that I’m sad to see Hakstol go. He’s a good man that I think deserved better from his team this season.
Every NHL player and coach will tell you, though, that this is a results-driven business. Hakstol was no longer getting the results his GM expected, and a change became necessary.
The search for Hakstol’s replacement starts now
If Hakstol’s arrival in Seattle was any indication of how the team’s search for its next head coach will go, then don’t expect to hear much official news about candidates.
Remember, when Hakstol was hired, people were widely reporting that Rick Tocchet was set to become the head coach, only for the official announcement to come out with Dave Hakstol’s name on it a couple days later. At that point, no hockey pundits on the planet had even mentioned Hakstol’s name as a candidate, and I genuinely believe that his ability to keep his interviews quiet played into his hiring by the very secretive Francis.
So, I’m very much speculating here on who I think the top candidates will be, but these are a few educated guesses.
Dan Bylsma
Coach Dan is perhaps the most obvious candidate to take over the helm. The current coach of the Coachella Valley Firebirds has worked wonders with Seattle’s AHL affiliate and brings the pedigree of winning a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009.
Disco Dan is well known by pretty much everyone in the organization, and from what I’ve gathered, players seem to really enjoy playing for him.
I interviewed Bylsma along with the late, great Andy Eide at Kraken Community Iceplex before last season for the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. Give that a listen here to get to know Bylsma’s personality a bit (and hear from Andy again).
Bylsma has a 320-190-55 record in the NHL, has led a dominant Firebirds team to a regular-season record of 94-32-11-7 over the past two seasons, and came one game shy of the Calder Cup in 2022-23.
Dean Evason
Dean Evason may not be quite as familiar to Kraken fans, but he and Francis go way back.
Evason is a successful, fiery, and often quirky coach that has been friends with Francis since his playing days. The two played together on the Hartford Whalers from the 1984-85 season until Francis was traded to Pittsburgh in March, 1991.
Evason, 59, spent parts of five seasons as bench boss of the Minnesota Wild after initially getting hired there as an assistant coach in 2018. He was elevated to interim head coach on Feb. 14, 2020, and had success down the stretch that season, guiding his new team to a 8-4-0 record in the final 12 games of the regular season before it lost 3-1 in the play-in round of the modified COVID bubble playoffs.
Wild general manager Bill Guerin was so pleased with the job Evason had done under the circumstances, he removed the interim tag the following offseason and officially made Evason an NHL head coach for the first time in his career. Evason rewarded Guerin with .670, .689, and .628 seasons, good for two third-place finishes and one second-place finish in the Central Division. The Wild lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of those three seasons.
With Evason still at the helm to start the 2023-24 campaign, Minnesota got off to a dreadful start, and he was fired one day after his team lost its seventh game in a row on Nov. 26, replaced immediately by John Hynes.
Evason has reportedly been interviewing already with the Ottawa Senators.
Rod Brind’Amour
This one feels like a stretch, but I’m throwing it out there. If Rod Brind’Amour becomes available this offseason, he will be at the top of every coaching candidate list in the NHL. His contract is up after this season, and getting him signed the last time around proved difficult for the always cost-conscious Tom Dundon, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes.
A deal eventually got done last time, and Brind’Amour is a legend in the Hurricanes organization, so I’m guessing another extension will come soon.
If no deal comes to fruition, though, you don’t have to look far to find connections between Francis and Brind’Amour.
*Author’s note: I initially ended my list here, but a couple other names got thrown at me that I thought were worth including.
Jay Woodcroft
“Woody,” as he’s known, coached parts of the last three seasons with the Edmonton Oilers before being canned after just 13 games this season. Ironically, I attended what I believe was Woodcroft’s last press availability before his firing, because Edmonton pulled the trigger the morning after the Oilers beat the Kraken 4-1 at Climate Pledge Arena on Nov. 11.
At the time, Edmonton had a horrendous 3-9-1 record, and they proved to be one of the best teams in the league under his successor, Kris Knoblauch.
Still, the Oilers were awesome in Woodcroft’s lone full season, and finished with 109 points before getting bounced in the second round by the eventual champion Vegas Golden Knights.
Despite the bad start to this season, Woodcroft still ended his tenure with an impressive 79-41-13 record and (from what I gathered) seemed to be well liked by his players.
Jay Leach
What about Leachy? We have heard whispers that Leach, the well-loved defensive coach for the Kraken, has been close to landing an NHL head-coaching job in the past couple seasons. We’ve also heard Seattle defensemen rave about what Leach has done to help shape their games.
Leach has served as an assistant coach for Seattle for the past three seasons and spent the previous four as the head coach of the Providence Bruins of the AHL.
Craig Berube
Craig Berube’s name is also out there as a potential for head-coaching vacancies, although I’m not sure I see the fit here. We do think more of a “players coach” will be hired by Seattle, and the gruff Stanley Cup winner does not seem to fit that mold, from what I know about him.
Who else am I missing?
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Welcome back! We’re continuing on with our end-of-season Kraken Roundtable series, which we launched last week. This week, we’re getting a bit more tactical with our discussion to understand the missteps of the Seattle Kraken in 2023-24 and to look ahead to the offseason.
In this one, Blaiz Grubic, John Barr, and Darren Brown teamed up to give their thoughts.
Enjoy!
What went wrong
Darren – I’m going to get a little “hot takey” with this one, but the obvious issue for the team was scoring. We’ve talked ad nauseam about how the fourth line took a step back, but as the offensive woes dragged on throughout the season, I thought the Kraken missed the likes of Daniel Sprong and Morgan Geekie (and to a lesser degree Ryan Donato) more and more. There were so many times last season where the top two lines couldn’t score, and then all of a sudden, the fourth line would chip one in and get things going. Scoring is contagious, and when you only have a few guys that can put the puck in the net, slumps can sweep through the entire roster.
Blaiz – The Kraken could not get key wins when they needed them. During the Thanksgiving break, the Kraken held onto the second wild card spot and looked poised to turn the corner, but instead, they came back from the break with an eight-game losing streak. This losing streak included losses to bottom dwellers Ottawa, Chicago, and Montreal.
Later in the season, just before the All-Star break, the Kraken laid an egg against San Jose. A win that night would have put them in a tie for the final wild card spot, but they instead went into the hiatus on a three-game losing streak. The final gasp was the loss to Vegas on March 3 at home, when they blew a two-goal lead in the third period and lost in overtime. Following the Vegas loss, the Kraken could not break the cycle and rattled off seven more losses, essentially eliminating themselves from playoff contention.
John – I’ve mentioned it before, but for me, it was the way the season started that put the Kraken at a severe disadvantage. They scored one goal or less in five of their first six games, setting a challenging tone for the rest of the season. While they flirted with a playoff position at times, they consistently took a step back whenever they got close to solidifying themselves as a contending team.
Pleasant surprise
John – The goaltending performance this year was excellent. The team finished ninth in the league in save percentage overall, but since Dec. 1, the Kraken ranked third in the entire NHL. Given the challenges the goaltending position has presented in the first two seasons, this improvement was quite surprising. Joey Daccord really stepped up when the team needed a boost, especially highlighted by his performance in the Winter Classic. Additionally, Philipp Grubauer showed great consistency in the second half of the season, which bodes well for the team heading into next season.
Blaiz – The Kraken recently announced that most Kraken regular-season games will be broadcast on King/Kong and Prime Video, removing the need for an expensive cable/streaming TV package. This will allow fans to watch the Kraken for free and help continue to grow the fanbase for the Seattle Kraken. What a pleasant surprise!
Darren – I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but I was a little surprised at how good Shane Wright looked in his call-up at the end of the season. He truly looked like a different player. For some reason, I expected him to come back up and still appear a little behind at the NHL level, but he showed me he is ready to make the team next season and potentially be an impactful player. That was exciting to see.
Reason to be optimistic
John – I believe the greatest strength of this franchise lies in its prospect pool, extending far beyond Coachella Valley. Numerous Kraken prospects playing in juniors or European leagues have been excelling in their respective teams.
Across the pond, Jani Nyman concluded the Liiga season in Finland by earning the Red Bull helmet, awarded to the top goal scorer under 20 years old. Oscar Fisker-Molgaard, drafted in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, saw significant ice time as a second-line center in the Swedish Hockey League, one of the world’s premier leagues. Additionally, Niklas Kokko has served as the starting goalie for Pelicans, currently competing in the Liiga finals.
In the CHL, Carson Rehkopf, a 2023 second-round selection, capped off his OHL season with an impressive 52 goals. David Goyette, drafted in 2022’s second round, led the OHL in points. Meanwhile, Jagger Firkus dominated the WHL with an astonishing 61 goals and 126 points.
Blaiz – Andre Burakovsky had a terrible year with 16 points in 49 games. The Swedish winger is too talented to continue to remain off the scoresheet. I wrote about Burakovsky’s struggles earlier this year. Burakovsky was able to finish the season playing 22 games straight without injury and scored six of his seven goals during that stretch. Hopefully with some stable linemates, he can return to his offensive self and be a strong contributor to fixing the Kraken’s scoring woes.
Darren – In that same realm, Blaiz, it was good to see Matty Beniers get going a little more toward the end of the season. He’s still very slight in stature, so I’m interested to see what he can do with a full offseason of training. Can he put on some weight this summer and come back more prepared to handle the physical nature of the NHL?
I’m also excited about what this team might do to improve this offseason. It has cap space and an improving prospect pool, plus plenty of motivation to get better. When you look at how this season played out, Seattle is not that far from being a scary team again, but it will need an injection of offense from the front office. These should be a few interesting months ahead.
Reason to be pessimistic
John – It’s highly unlikely that Tomas Tatar, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Kailer Yamamoto, and Justin Schultz will return to the Kraken next season. I expect Shane Wright to claim one of the vacated spots and Ryker Evans to become a regular in the lineup next season. This leaves only one starting forward position available, and it’s unclear whether one new addition to the lineup can make a significant impact on such a key position.
Blaiz – There could still be a lack of scoring next season. I was glad to see general manager Ron Francis acknowledge this issue in his end-of-season presser. There are many players that scored below their career averages this year, although next season, Burakovsky, Beniers, and Jaden Schwartz should rebound a bit and add somewhere between 18 and 23 goals. The prospect pool is impressive, but those players are also not fully baked, and outside of Wright, the prospects are all still one-to-two seasons out. It would be a nice surprise if one of them could contribute meaningfully to the Kraken scoring, but that is a lot to put on any rookie.
Darren – It was painfully obvious to me that the Kraken needed to add a weapon or two last offseason, and I would argue they iced a significantly worse roster this season. I’m just afraid Francis might be a little too cautious for his own good again this summer at a time when some bigger swings feel necessary.
Prospect you are most excited about
Blaiz – Shane Wright has been the prospect I am most excited about since Seattle drafted him fourth overall in 2022. Due to his lost season during the pandemic, Wright was developmentally one year behind Beniers when he was drafted. Now with the two years under his belt in the Kraken development system, Wright looks poised to make the jump full-time to the Kraken. My hot take is Wright will be the Kraken first-line center within the next three years. This is nothing against Beniers, who I think will also rebound and continue to develop next year, but the offensive ceiling is higher for Wright. I am super excited to have Beniers and Wright be the Kraken’s one-two punch for years to come.
Darren – Yeah, Wright is the obvious answer here, and you may be onto something with him as the top center. Either way, Beniers and Wright should serve as a very nice top-two center duo a couple seasons from now. BUT… since you went with Wright, I’ll go in a different direction here and say Jani Nyman (leaving Carson Rehkopf for you, John). I think Nyman will need a year in the AHL to work on his skating and getting used to the North American game, but his size and shot are pretty exciting attributes. If he can get a little faster working with Jess Campbell, I think he could be a player in a couple years.
John – I am excited about Shane, but I am particularly enthusiastic about Rehkopf (thanks for the layup, Darren). I’ve been consistently impressed by his knack for scoring goals from all areas of the ice throughout the season. He appears to be one of the most talented shooters ever in the Kraken’s prospect pool. In my view, the Kraken should seriously consider giving him an opportunity to make the team next season. At the very least, he deserves a chance to start the season with the team and play some regular-season NHL games.
Hi all! Darren Brown here. Our wonderful photographer, Brian Liesse, graciously put together a collection of his favorite photos from the 2023-24 season, and we are thrilled to share them with you here.
Please note that these photos are property of Sound Of Hockey and cannot be reused.
If you were expecting fireworks from the Seattle Kraken’s end-of-season locker cleanout days, you may have been disappointed. While there were plenty of interesting tidbits to be gleaned from what was said by the players and head coach Dave Hakstol on Saturday and general manager Ron Francis on Monday, no official bombs have been dropped at this point.
Coming in, we were at least half expecting some sort of big personnel-related news, seeing as things went sideways for this club, which couldn’t score its way out of a paper bag and finished 19 standings points worse than last season.
But, the always cautious and taciturn Ron Francis continued to slow play any adjustments while also not ruling them out.
The future of the coaching staff
While we weren’t *certain* changes to the coaching staff would come, we also wouldn’t have been shocked if something like this came out over the past couple of days.
Our spidey senses had been piqued for a couple of reasons. First, there is a precedent of changes to the coaching staff being announced in this setting. Two seasons ago, after the Kraken had dreadfully bad goaltending in their inaugural campaign, Francis announced at his end-of-season presser that goalie coach Andrew Allen would not return in that role (though Allen has remained on staff with Seattle as a pro scout). So, another such announcement after the Kraken failed to live up to expectations in 2023-24 wouldn’t have surprised us.
The other thing that made us wonder if there was a personnel-related announcement coming was Francis doing his availability solo. This doesn’t sound like that big of a thing, but Francis and Hakstol spoke with the media together as a united front last season, after the team reached the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and came up one goal shy of the Western Conference Final.
This season, Hakstol spoke after the players on Saturday, and Francis spoke alone on Monday. Was there something to that slight procedural change?
Francis was asked about the coaching staff, and he stopped short of any definitive declarations.
“It’s part of the process we go through now, right?” Francis said. “Meeting with the coaching staff, the management team, all that stuff, and assessing, and so we’re still in that process now.”
Francis then spoke at length about the many injuries the team sustained this season, and implied that those were being factored into any decisions the team is still making.
When asked specifically about Hakstol’s future with the organization, Francis said, “Well, you’re going to read into it one way or the other, but this is the process we do every year, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”
So, that’s not exactly a resounding, ‘Yes, Dave Hakstol will be the head coach of the Seattle Kraken next season,’ but it’s also not a, ‘We’re moving on from Dave Hakstol’ type of response either.
Hearing Hakstol on Saturday, he sounded generally disappointed with the result of the season, but he also did not sound like a coach that expected to be terminated. Instead, Hakstol spoke a lot about his conversations with players and how he was pleased with their reactions to not making the playoffs.
“Most of the player meetings have been really good,” Hakstol said. “Just straight up, honest discussions, not necessarily individually based. We’ve got some really smart guys, we’ve got some great veterans, and everybody cares a lot. So today is… as we gain perspective, it’s also Day 1 or Day 2 of working toward solving some of the issues that lead to some inconsistencies.”
Reading the tea leaves, we truly don’t think anything has been decided on the coaching staff just yet. It’s entirely possible that the whole crew returns next season, but there is due diligence being done by the front office right now to help them make those calls.
Worth noting, we did ask defenseman Vince Dunn about how the message from the coaches was landing with the team in the later stages of the season, and here is what he said:
“I thought we responded to what they said the same way throughout the whole year. I think there’s only so much a coach can say, realistically. If you want to point fingers around the room, and it’s easy to do, it ultimately comes down to the guys in the dressing room, and we’re the ones out there that need to do what it takes to win. I think there’s obviously moments in the season where there’s tension between players and everything, with so many distractions and outside noise and so much pressure when it’s time to push for the playoffs. And the messages are very direct and very intense, but by no means was the dressing room lost.”
While no announcement of personnel changes has come yet, we still would not be shocked to see something happen on this front in the coming weeks.
Injury updates
Seattle finally got mostly healthy toward the end of the season, but Dunn, arguably the team’s best player, missed all but two games from March 4 onward after a very dirty hit by Calgary Flames forward Martin Pospisil.
WHAT IS WITH THIS POSPISIL KID?!
Now he blows up Vince Dunn from behind and sends him head-first into the dasher board.
Dunn declined on Saturday to tell us what the injury was, but Francis said Monday that it was a neck injury. On the plus side, Dunn did imply that he was close to 100 percent, but that the injury was one he didn’t want to “mess with.” So, we would expect him to be fully healthy in time for training camp.
Jared McCann missed a few days toward the end of the season but returned for the last couple games. He said he is fully healthy and will join Team Canada for the upcoming IIHF World Championship.
Francis also revealed that Jordan Eberle broke his hand early in the season in his lone fight of the year, after Logan O’Connor of the Colorado Avalanche made him “answer the bell” for injuring Andrew Cogliano in the playoffs last season. Eberle played through the injury.
Shane Wright talk
Both Francis and Hakstol spoke highly of top prospect Shane Wright and his recent stint with the team in which he racked up five points (4-1—5) in five games between April 1 and April 11 before returning to Coachella Valley.
Here’s what Dave Hakstol said:
“Really positive performances for Shane in his games with us here at the end of the season. The offensive piece is an easy one again to evaluate, and he produced there. He produced on a consistent basis, and he looked like he was ready to do it, right? Some of the goals that he scored, they were National Hockey League goals. They were inside, they were on and off his tape, so very, very positive in that sense. Some of the other growth is a little bit harder to evaluate through stats, but things you can see with your eyes, he’s much more comfortable with the puck on his tape in tight spaces, getting us out of our zone, really a ton of advancement in his game defensively, positionally, from stick detail to positioning of his feet, his body. So, we saw some great growth in his game.”
And Ron Francis:
“In Shane’s case, I’ve always seen things in his game that we like. I think he’s come a long way in his development. I think he’s much more confident, I think he’s having fun again playing the game, and the stint he had up here, I’m not sure it could have went much better other than if he got the hat trick in Anaheim, then it would be really good… We see a bright future for Shane in the organization. I don’t think there’s any reason why he couldn’t make our team coming out of camp [next season].”
Will the team name a captain?
The team will at least have discussions about the *idea* of naming a captain this offseason.
Said Hakstol, “I’m not leaning either way on that. That’s a discussion that I think is a valid discussion to have, as we get into the early part of this offseason.”
Added Francis, “We talked about that as the season went along, looking at naming a captain next year.”
Fans seem to care about this a lot, but we really don’t think it has a huge bearing on the success (or not) of the team. Leaders can lead regardless of if they have a ‘C’ on their jersey.
Contractual items
Francis implied that conversations would be starting very soon with restricted free agents Matty Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen to try to “get something done.” He also indicated the team will have to make a decision on whether or not to qualify Kailer Yamamoto, who has arbitration rights. “If we qualify him, then he can take us to [arbitration].”
It’s just our guess, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Yamamoto is cut loose this offseason.
Meanwhile, Francis was coy about his unrestricted free agents, but we did ask defenseman Justin Schultz about his future.
“It’s still pretty early,” Schultz said. “Obviously, I love it here, and there’s still a lot to be played out. We’ll see what happens over the summer.”
Again, just looking at his fit with the club now that Ryker Evans has mostly proven he’s ready for the NHL, we would expect Seattle to let Schultz move on, but we shall see.
General takeaways
The general mood of the press availabilities was unsurprisingly one of disappointment. The Kraken players expected to still be playing at this point, and they recognized that they could have performed better this season.
“I think maybe we came into the year thinking things were just going to be the same, and we’ll just [make the playoffs] again, and it didn’t turn out that way,” Eberle said. “So I think you’ll see a different team that will come back and try and get back to that point next year.”
The slow start to the season was also a common theme, as was the sharp decrease in scoring. Hakstol had some interesting things to say about the team’s offense in the below video clip.
Now the Kraken players have a full offseason ahead of them to recuperate, train, and marinate on what it’s like to be done playing in April. If nothing else, hopefully we see a quicker start out of the gates in 2024-25.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
