The 2022-23 Seattle Kraken Post-Mortem

by Darren Brown | Jun 1, 2023 | Uncategorized

Too soon? Nah. We are now two weeks removed from the Seattle Kraken’s Game 7 loss to the Dallas Stars in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Based on our completely arbitrary metrics, it feels like sufficient time has now passed, and we can finally put our heads together for the 2022-23 Sound Of Hockey Seattle Kraken Post-Mortem. That’s a long name, but we’ll workshop it to come up with something more snappy for future seasons. 

Let’s get to it. 

What went right for the Seattle Kraken season this season? 

Josh Horton: Depth scoring will likely go down as the prevailing theme of this season, but the emergence of Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn as a bona fide top pair stands out as well. The way both shouldered important minutes–Dunn as a legitimate offensive threat and Larsson as a stabilizing defensive force–settled down the lineup and provided reliability for head coach Dave Hakstol, especially late in the season and in the playoffs.

John Barr: The depth scoring was obviously a key piece in the success of the Kraken season, but part of that was due to the health of the team. Other than Andre Burakovsky, who missed the second half of the season and playoffs with a torn groin, the Kraken were relatively healthy. There were nine Kraken players that had over 80 games played this season, compared to 2021-22 when only two players ended up with 80 games or more. If there were just a couple more injuries in the NHL, the depth might not have been there for the Kraken. The Kraken’s strong depth stopped at the NHL level, and if the team was forced to dip into the AHL for long stretches during the season, the outcomes might have been different. 

Darren Brown: But John, what about Tye Kartye? Ok, maybe one successful callup does not mean the Kraken are deep with emerging talent from their prospect pool, and you’re probably right that depth only exists within the NHL roster and not so much beyond. 

Like both of my colleagues that have already answered, I too am going to allude to the depth of the team, but then call out something different. The players were able to build real belief in themselves this season. They got just enough goaltending and enough timely scoring to put them on a couple long winning streaks that buoyed (shoutout Buoy) their playoff chances, even as they stumbled at times down the stretch. The psyche of this team is very different now than it was at the end of the inaugural season, and that should carry over into next season. Even with tweaks to the lineup, the core group will be back, and it knows it can win now. 

Curtis Isacke: Many have called for the Kraken to name an individual captain, but, from the outside, it seems to me like the veteran leadership on this team was something that went right this season. It is hard to overstate this team’s on-ice accomplishments following a sixty-point inaugural season. The Kraken became only the third team in NHL history to follow a season with 60 or fewer points with a season of 100 or more (joining the 1992-93 Quebec Nordiques and 2006-07 Penguins). The Kraken added some important pieces in the offseason, no doubt, but it would have been all too easy to call an 80 point 2022-23 season a “success.” This team didn’t settle for that. The Kraken were difficult to beat on the road (26-11-4) and resilient in difficult situations, including in the playoffs. It’s a credit to the team’s mindset and buy-in, and that starts with the players who wore the “A” this season.

What went wrong? 

JH: There wasn’t much that went wrong for Seattle this year, but if you had to pick, the Shane Wright debacle stands out. Now, I think in hindsight Seattle did all it could with Wright, who wasn’t quite ready to contribute at the NHL level, but obviously was too good for junior hockey and couldn’t play in the AHL due to the NHL-CHL agreement. However, seeing Wright knocked out early of the Ontario Hockey League playoffs–after being hampered with injuries–and struggling in Coachella Valley even to crack the lineup in the playoffs hasn’t sparked much optimism. 

Now, I don’t think this is any cause for panic. All prospects develop at different paces, and Wright clearly has some hurdles he still needs to clear. Even with his struggles this season, the No. 4 pick in 2022 showed some really positive signs, with a prolific scoring run during his initial conditioning stint in the AHL and a near two-points-per-game scoring pace for the Windsor Spitfires in the OHL. However, one does wonder if this season really provided a proper season of development for Wright, and for that, I believe this was the biggest organizational shortcoming in 2022 — that dang NHL-CHL agreement! 

DB: I agree wholeheartedly with everything Josh just said. It would have been really nice in this scenario for Wright to just be allowed to go to the AHL and develop, as that was clearly where he belonged. It’s still unclear if he will be dealing with the same issue next season, and if so, it will be an even bigger conundrum for the Kraken than it was in 2022-23. 

CI: The Kraken have a handful of high-end finishers (Andre Burakovsky, Jared McCann, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Daniel Sprong, and Eeli Tolvanen) and facilitators (Jordan Eberle, Alex Wennberg) up front. This seems like a good set of ingredients to build a power play. But it didn’t work out that way in 2022-23. In the regular season, the team ranked tied for 19th in the league with a 19.8 percent conversion rate. In the postseason, the team checked in at 14th (of 16) at 14.3 percent. The raw results from the regular season look mediocre, but some strong puck luck obscures the dreadful shot quality generated by the team. In fact, looking at quality of shot data alone, the power play showed little, if any, improvement from 2022-23 over 2021-22, despite the personnel improvements.

Why is the team struggling? It’s a topic I want to investigate this offseason, but off the cuff, three factors come to mind. First, the team failed to regularly gain possession off of offensive zone draws. Second, the team’s zone entries were inefficient, in part because they were overly reliant on the schemed approach, which can be countered when it is too predictable. And, third, the team was too static in the offensive zone, losing the skating game that brought them success five-on-five. In watching other power plays around the league, I was often struck by the fact that motion and position exchanges within a power play structure can create confusion and draw defenders out of positions guarding the slot. The Kraken rarely did this.

JB: Not a damn thing… Well, other than the power play, which Curtis mentioned already.

What was the biggest surprise? 

JB: For me the biggest surprise might have been the penalty kill. The team PK did not start out that well, but as the season went on, it became stronger and stronger. It felt like this was a key component of the team’s success down the home stretch of the regular season that carried over to the playoffs.

JH: Tye Kartye’s rise came out of nowhere for me. Prospects–nonetheless undrafted free agents–hit at a small clip as it is, but Kartye not only breaking into the NHL at 22, but contributing to Seattle’s top line in the playoffs was a very welcome surprise. The positive momentum generated from Kartye’s playoff emergence will be fun to monitor in training camp and into next year. 

CI: Kartye’s development at the AHL level and postseason NHL performance is a good one, Josh. I’ll go with the waiver claim and play of Eeli Tolvanen this year. He is a very good finisher and a solid defender, and he has developed strong chemistry with Yanni Gourde in a natural middle-six position for him. He’s still one of the youngest core members of the NHL team too and looks like a lineup stalwart for years to come. If we’re flashing back to the beginning of the year, this definitely qualifies as a pleasant surprise.

DB: How about Dave Hakstol as a Jack Adams nominee? All through last season and even in the early stages of this season, it was painful to read our Twitter mentions some nights, as all we saw was “fire Hakstol” vitriol. He turned the team around in its second season and clearly got buy-in from the group, and what was most impressive to me was how he seemed to be able to address problems mid-season. The penalty kill is a great example of that. 

What was the biggest disappointment of the season?

JB: It’s hard to be disappointed with anything from this team this season, but maybe McCann getting hurt in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Playoff opening round. It was unfortunate, considering he had been such a big piece of the team’s success throughout the season. When he came back, it seemed to take some time for him to get his legs under him and get comfortable with the pace of the game, so it would have been nice to see him healthy coming into the Dallas series.

JH: The only real disappointment I can think of is the Andre Burakovsky injury. While Seattle’s strength was its depth, the Kraken could have used Burakovsky’s firepower during some lulls in the playoffs. 

CI: I didn’t have high expectations for Joonas Donskoi coming into the season, but I was hoping for his sake and the team’s sake that he could re-establish himself as an NHL regular this year. In that regard it was disappointing to see him sidelined for the entire season with an undisclosed injury. At this point, I am hoping that he is doing well with his health moving forward.

DB: It was disappointing to see the Kraken lose Game 7 in Dallas by one goal. They were so close to the Western Conference Finals, but they just didn’t have enough gas left in the tank that night. 

What was your favorite moment of the Seattle Kraken season? 

JB: Jordan Eberle’s overtime game winner in Game 4 of the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against Colorado has to be my favorite moment. There was so much on the line in that overtime. If the Kraken were to lose that game, they would have gone down 3-1 in the series, and the outcome of that round would have been different. Making the playoffs was a big deal for this franchise, but the storylines and epic moments of its playoff run added to the lore of the Seattle Kraken. Eberle minted fans with that game winner in overtime, and we might look back on it as one of the biggest moments in franchise history.

JH: It doesn’t get much better than a Game 7 win. Watching Oliver Bjorkstrand play one of the best games of his career and Philipp Grubauer come up with clutch save after clutch save was a treat to watch. The joy of winning an elimination game–on the road, no less–is hard to beat. 

DB: I’ll go with Josh’s Game 7 answer, but for different reasons. I had the privilege of being in the building in Denver that night, and it is something that I personally will never forget. You could feel the uneasiness in the crowd, as it started to set in that the Avs were on the ropes, and when the final horn sounded, seeing how happy the guys were in the locker room was just awesome. I will never forget that night. 

CI: Jordan Eberle’s overtime winner from Game 4 against the Colorado Avalanche is tough to beat. It was an electric moment in the arena. But this team was so generous with its highlights this year, I’ll go a different direction. Thought a bit about Justin Schultz’s overtime winner against the Rangers. But I’ll go with Eeli Tolvanen’s goal to open the scoring in Game 1 against Colorado, the team’s first playoff goal, in its first playoff win, the year after recording the third-worst record in the NHL. It was an indelible moment of validation for the franchise and the fanbase.

Do you agree or disagree with our takes?  If not, give us your own post-mortem in the comments section.

Shane Wright’s short-term outlook with the Kraken remains to be determined

by Curtis Isacke | May 23, 2023 | Uncategorized

As Kraken fans turn the page to the offseason, they have questions about where 2022 first-round pick Shane Wright is going to play during the 2023-24 season and what his role will be. Turns out the team has questions about Wright’s status too. We learned this much during Kraken general manger Ron Francis’s May 18 end-of-season media availability.

Much remains to be determined, but here is what we know about how Shane Wright has performed so far, what he needs to work on, and his status moving forward, including why he may be at the center of a forthcoming negotiation between the Kraken, NHLPA, NHL, and CHL.

Shane Wright has little left to prove at the CHL level

In his draft year, Shane Wright played 74 games (63 regular season and 11 postseason) with the Kingston Frontenacs of the OHL. He ranked ninth in points per game among OHL skaters with at least 10 games played (1.46) and was significantly younger than every player who ranked ahead of him. Justifiably, this made him a top prospect in the 2022 NHL Draft and the No. 4 overall pick to the Seattle Kraken.

Wright came to development camp with the Seattle Kraken and quickly signed his entry-level contract with the team. Wright then survived training camp and broke with the NHL team. That began a whirlwind tour that saw him in and out of the Kraken lineup, in the lineup for the AHL Coachella Valley Firebirds, and leading Canada’s World Junior Championship team to a gold medal, all within the span of about four months. More on those stops in a moment.

After the World Junior Championship, Francis met with Wright and told him Seattle planned to reassign him back to the OHL. This reassignment was advantageous contractually for the Kraken because it would cause his entry-level contract to “slide” a year. (I wrote more on what that means here.) But, more importantly, Francis told Wright the team wanted the young forward to press his offensive game, control possession, and dominate in the offensive zone.

After a trade from Kingston that facilitated his return to the OHL, Shane Wright played 24 games (20 regular season and 4 postseason) with the Windsor Spitfires, and he was second in the league in points per game (1.85) during that span. This year again, the league’s only more prolific scorer, Brandt Clarke (1.97), is about a year older than Wright.

Whatever the flaws in Wright’s game may be, they do not manifest at the major junior level. Wright certainly has not reached Connor Bedard-level CHL domination, but there are few players at that level that consistently produce like he does. It was certainly disappointing that Wright couldn’t help the Spitfires avoid a first-round playoff sweep (for multiple reasons, as we will discuss below), but Wright has not faced individual adversity at the junior level, and I don’t expect he will.

Shane Wright has faced challenges at higher levels of play

Moving from the major junior level to the NHL, or even the AHL, is a huge leap in competition. The physicality, pace, skill, and enhanced emphasis on structure and scheme all pose considerable challenges to even the best CHL prospects. This is why very few prospects even attempt the leap into either level of pro hockey before their age 20 seasons. Shane Wright was attempting it as an 18-year-old (he turned 19 on Jan. 5, 2023) in his draft-plus-one season and at one of the most difficult positions on the ice, center. Over the last 10 NHL seasons, only 27 skaters have managed 20-plus NHL points in their 18-year-old seasons.

Coming out of training camp, the Kraken wanted Wright to join that list by sticking in the NHL and developing into a role. It became clear pretty quickly, though, that the coaching staff did not yet view him as a trusted piece: his minutes were limited when he did play, and he never saw the ice in critical situations. Wright looked intent on avoiding turnovers, gaffes, or getting trapped on the ice beyond his shift. This led to overly conservative play, particularly with the puck. He rarely held possession looking to create, instead deferring into (sometimes dangerous) passes almost immediately. He appeared tentative in all phases, giving the impression of a player who was trying to think his way through the game rather than just playing.

In the end, he played just eight NHL games, wrapping around a two-week conditioning stint with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the AHL. Wright averaged just 8:30 time on ice per game at the NHL level and produced just one point, a memorable goal against the Montreal Canadiens in the one game after his recall from the AHL.

At the AHL level, Wright initially seemed to take the challenge in stride. He poured in four goals in five games in late November and early December, 2022. Kraken GM Ron Francis spoke about how he thought the AHL was the proper level for Wright to develop his skills and implicitly lamented that the organization could not keep Wright there. “In a perfect world … you put [Wright] in the AHL, and that’s probably the best spot for him this past year,” Francis told reporters at the year-end press conference.

Why wasn’t the AHL a full-season option this year? “Rules dictate that we can’t do that,” Francis said. Under the CHL-NHL Transfer Agreement, an 18- or 19-year-old CHL player typically cannot be assigned by the NHL club to the AHL, but there are three exceptions. The first exception is the one-time exception for a two-week conditioning assignment. (The Kraken exploited that exception to the full extent of the rule in November.) The second exception comes if the player has already played four CHL seasons. (More on this exception in a moment.) And, the third exception allows the player to rejoin the NHL roster or be assigned to the AHL after the player’s major junior season is completed.

This last exception meant that, following the abrupt and underwhelming conclusion of the Windsor Spitrfires season, Wright found himself eligible to rejoin the Firebirds on a full-time basis. Wright took advantage, getting into fourteen consecutive games for the Firebirds, three regular season and 11 postseason. But he could not carry over his momentum from his earlier AHL stint or his major junior run where the offense came easily. In those fourteen AHL games, Wright managed just one goal and five assists, played fourth-line-equivalent minutes, and again appeared tentative and unwilling or incapable of making aggressive possession plays.

This quiet stretch culminated in Wright being scratched from the lineup for the final two games of the playoff series against the Calgary Wranglers. It is possible that he is dealing with a nagging injury, but no particular blow seemed to knock him out of the last game he played. Rather, it appears Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma concluded that other players gave his team the better chance for success, particularly with the simultaneous returns of more-established AHL performers Andrew Poturalski and Jesper Froden and AHL rookie of the year Tye Kartye.

Coachella Valley advanced to the Western Conference Finals by defeating the Calgary Wranglers last Friday night. This will give Wright further opportunity to show he belongs in the lineup. But he seems to be hitting up against a development ceiling at the moment. “He’s a young kid. We forget these guys are 18, 19, and it takes time to understand and learn the league,” Francis explained. “There are parts of his game he needs to continue to work on and we’ll … continue to help him find his way.”

Where will Wright play during the 2023-24 season?

Could Shane Wright play in the NHL next season? Francis emphasized that the challenge is ahead of Shane Wright this summer: “This is not an easy league and we have got a good team. He’s going to have to earn it like everybody else has around here, and that includes having a big summer.”

One key to improvement may be strength training in the lower half to improve the explosion in Wright’s stride and his endurance. “He’s got the tools,” Francis told Ian Furness of KJR in an interview later on May 18. “The most important thing for him when this season is done is to get in the gym and get on the bike and do the things he needs to do and push as hard as he needs to push to give himself that best opportunity to come to training camp.”

Wright has not shown that he is ready to perform at the NHL level yet, so it is on him, with support from the team, to breakthrough. If he can, all involved would be ecstatic.

Failing that immediate breakthrough, Francis was asked if there was an opportunity for Wright to play a full AHL season next year. Francis gave the press pool a noncommittal answer: “There would be some discussions we’d have to have to get clarity. I haven’t had those discussions yet.” Later in the day, Francis told Furness: “There’s a few things we would need to work through to see if he could play in the American League or not, so we have to go through that process.”

What are the potential “conversations” and issues to “work through?” Wright will enter next season as a 19-year-old. As mentioned above, players of this age cannot be assigned to the AHL typically. (David Goyette, Jagger Firkus, and Ty Nelson, for example, are all but certain to return to the CHL as 19-year-olds.) But, as was also mentioned above, there is an exception if a player has already played four seasons in the CHL.

Shane Wright was granted “exceptional status” and made eligible to play in the CHL as a 15-year-old and therefore has been a CHLer for four years. Sounds good, right? He should be eligible to play in the AHL. What is there to talk about?

Unfortunately, there is some doubt about whether Wright’s CHL tenure would actually count as “four seasons.” Under the NHL-CHL Transfer agreement, a player is deemed to have played a season in the CHL if the skater plays 25 games, and it could be argued that one or two of Wright’s four seasons do not qualify.

First, the OHL never played a 2020-21 season due to COVID, so it could be argued that season does not count for Wright because he did not play 25 games. That may be unfair, and the CHL may not argue this position, but it’s at least something that would need to be “clarified” in Francis’s words.

Second, due to his late assignment, the World Junior Championship, an injury, and Windsor’s early elimination from the playoffs, Wright played in only 24 total games with the Sptitfires this season. Again, this leaves Wright, at least arguably, just short of being able to claim this year as a CHL “season” either.

All of this creates a risk that the Kraken and Wright are stuck in no-man’s land again this season, with Wright unable to crack the NHL lineup but too good for the CHL. I expect that the Kraken will push hard for an interpretation of the NHL-CHL Transfer Agreement or a one-off exemption that allows Wright to play in the AHL if he does not make the NHL team. Given the unique circumstance, I have some hope the team would be successful in these “conversations.” But it is anything but a sure thing.

We’ll keep our eye on Wright through the AHL playoffs and into the summer. He remains a key piece of the team’s long-term future. His outlook in the short term, however, remains murky.