2023-24 NHL team preview: Seattle Kraken

LAST SEASON

After registering a mere 60 points in their inaugural season, the Seattle Kraken jumped all the way up to 100 in 2022–23 and qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the No. 1 Wildcard team in the Western Conference. From there, they proceeded to vanquish the defending champion Colorado Avalanche before falling to the Dallas Stars, both in seven games.

Talk about a run nobody saw coming. The Kraken made a few notable additions in the 2022 offseason, including Oliver Bjorkstrand, Andre Burakovsky, and Justin Schultz, but nothing to suggest that they’d improve by 40 points. They’d also lost Day 1 Kraken players Mark Giordano, Calle Jarnkrok, and Marcus Johansson ahead of the 2021–22 trade deadline. But the likes of Jared McCann, Vince Dunn, and Daniel Sprong took major steps forward while rookie forward Matty Beniers looked the part of a young No. 1 center. All that (and a fair amount of shooting luck) was enough to give Seattle hockey fans their best season since, uh, 1924.

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Kailer Yamamoto, RW
Brian Dumoulin, D
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, C

Departures

Daniel Sprong, RW (DET)
Morgan Geekie, C (BOS)
Ryan Donato, C (CHI)
Carson Soucy, D (VAN)
Martin Jones, G (TOR)

OFFENSE

Seattle is as balanced an offensive team as there is in the NHL. There aren’t really any weak links in this forward group, but there also aren’t any superstars. Jared McCann exploded with 40 goals and 70 points in 79 games last year, but in this day and age, 70-point scorers aren’t particularly difficult to come by in the league. That’s not intended as a slight against McCann, who is a very good player, but the hope in Seattle is that Matty Beniers can surpass his offensive ceiling at some point in the near future.

Beniers performed admirably as a 20-year-old for much of last season, racking up 24 goals and 57 points in 80 games and capturing the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league’s top rookie. He looked the part of a No. 2 overall pick, and then some. If Beniers can take a couple more steps forward offensively while continuing to grow his game in the defensive zone, he could become one of the top centers in the league in a few years. But with Connor Bedard, Logan Cooley, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson, and others primed to hit the ground running, Beniers will have no shortage of competition in that regard, and he’ll also be pressed internally by Yanni Gourde in the immediate future. Although it certainly isn’t the flashiest group down the middle, the Beniers/Gourde/Alexander Wennberg trio certainly isn’t one to be overlooked.

Seattle is truly flush with talent on the wings. McCann, Jordan Eberle, Andre Burakovsky, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jaden Schwartz, and Eeli Tolvanen form one of the strongest top-nine winger groups in the entire league. Having Brandon Tanev and Kailer Yamamoto on the fourth line is an incredible luxury. While it’s hard to fathom anyone on this Kraken team exceeding 80 points next year, it certainly isn’t difficult to imagine this lineup boasting 10 guys with 40 or more. They had eight last year, with Burakovsky, Tanev, and Wennberg close behind. But it’s also worth noting that the Kraken collectively shot 11.6% last year, significantly above the NHL average. That’s probably coming down.

DEFENSE

Is Vince Dunn a No. 1 defenseman? Seattle hedged its bets a little bit this past summer, giving the 26-year-old a hefty $7.35 million AAV … for just four years. Dunn broke out with 14 goals and 64 points in 81 games with the Kraken last year, but he didn’t score at the same level in the playoffs and his defensive results were merely okay. He’ll be one to watch as he continues to grow in a favorable Kraken defensive system.

Like their forward group, the Kraken defensive corps works best with a do-it-by-committee approach. On paper, a top four of Dunn, Adam Larsson, Jamie Oleksiak, and Will Borgen doesn’t look like much, but all four of those players fill a specific role. With Brian Dumoulin and Justin Schultz also in the fold, the Kraken are capable of rolling three competent pairs with varying degrees of proficiency in all three zones. It’s a versatile group, even if it doesn’t have a Cale Makar or an Adam Fox. In 2022–23, the Kraken allowed the fifth-fewest expected goals at 5-on-5 in the entire league (according to Natural Stat Trick).

Relative to their division rivals, Seattle’s defense is right around the middle of the pack. Strictly personnel-wise, they’re below Vegas and Calgary, roughly on par with L.A. and Edmonton, slightly ahead of Vancouver, and comfortably ahead of San Jose and Anaheim. It just remains to be seen if, like last year, those six starters on D can gel into something a little better than they look on paper.

GOALTENDING

Seattle’s strong defense papered over a lot of their goaltending struggles last season. It’s hard to win the Stanley Cup with a tandem of Philipp Grubauer and Martin Jones, but the Kraken got just about halfway there last spring. To his credit, Grubauer went from posting an .895 save percentage in 39 games during the regular season to a .903 — almost exactly the league average — in 14 playoff contests, but he still has yet to live up to the six-year, $5.9 million AAV contract he signed with the Kraken back in 2021. After all, it’s not as though he played behind a porous defensive group last year — not by any means.

With Jones now in Toronto, it’ll be up to Chris Driedger and Joey Daccord to battle it out for the second goaltending spot in Seattle this season. Driedger didn’t play in the NHL last year while rehabbing a torn ACL, while Daccord excelled with the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds as they made it all the way to the Calder Cup Final. Here’s a prediction: Daccord makes the team as Grubauer’s backup, while Driedger is flipped to the Colorado Avalanche to fill the void behind Alexandar Georgiev.

COACHING

Dave Hakstol remains the only head coach the Seattle Kraken have ever known. The 55-year-old from Drayton Valley, Alberta spent four seasons (2015–2019) as the head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers before joining the Toronto Maple Leafs as an assistant coach for the 2019–20 and 2020–21 seasons; then, on June 24, 2021, Kraken GM Ron Francis named Hakstol the first head coach in club history.

Hakstol was named a Jack Adams Award finalist in recognition of his role in helping the Kraken clinch their first playoff berth in 2022–23. He subsequently signed a contract extension to remain in Seattle through at least the 2025–26 season. Dave Lowry, Jay Leach, and Paul McFarland currently serve as Hakstol’s assistants with the Kraken.

ROOKIES

Ryker Evans is fresh off being named to the AHL All-Rookie Team after posting 44 points (six goals, 38 assists) in 71 games with the 2022–23 Coachella Valley Firebirds. He followed that up by amassing 26 points in 26 playoff games as the Firebirds made it to the league championship series. The Calgary product is as smooth a skater as you’ll see at the AHL level, and it’s only a matter of time before he makes it into the Kraken lineup. If one of the incumbent six D in Seattle goes down for any length of time this year, watch for Evans to be called up.

Everyone knows the story with Shane Wright, who had a hectic 2022–23 season after being selected No. 4 overall by the Kraken in the 2022 NHL Draft. Wright has been granted an exemption to spend the 2023–24 season with the Firebirds instead of being forced to return to the OHL. It’s possible we could see Wright back in Seattle at some point this year, but there’s nothing wrong with him playing a ton of minutes over a full season in the AHL before he gets another crack at it with the big club.

Beyond those two, keep an eye on Tye Kartye and Kole Lind this year. Kartye made his NHL debut with the Kraken during the 2023 playoffs and racked up three goals and five points in 10 games; Lind was outstanding for the Firebirds all year long and led the team with 31 points in 26 playoff games. Neither guy projects to be much more than a middle-six winger in the NHL, but the Kraken will eventually need internal replacements for the likes of Brandon Tanev and perhaps even Jordan Eberle.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. Will Jordan Eberle be re-signed? Eberle turned back the clock with 63 points in 82 games with the 2022–23 Kraken. He also led the team with six goals in 14 playoff games. Eberle is as reliable a second-line winger as there is in the NHL, but he’ll be 34 when his contract expires next summer. A short-term extension for Eberle at or near his current $5.5 million cap hit makes some sense, but Seattle might also decide to flip him for futures. We’ll see.

2. Can Andre Burakovsky stay healthy? Here’s a look at the number of games Burakovsky has missed in each of his last seven NHL seasons: 33, 2, 5, 24, 6, 26, 18. Burakovsky got off to a great start in Seattle before suffering a season-ending injury in the team’s first game after the All-Star break. The two-time Stanley Cup champion can easily surpass 60 points in a season when fully healthy — he was on track for 65 before his injury.

3. Will a Kraken goalie exceed .900? Between Philipp Grubauer, Martin Jones, Joey Daccord, and Chris Driedger, the Kraken have never had a goaltender post a SV% above .900 in a season. All four of those goalies sit below .900 for their entire Kraken tenures. It’s about time for someone to change that, and we’ll say both Grubauer and Daccord finish above .900 in 2023–24. And to take it one step further: Daccord will post a .920.

PREDICTION

Seattle is a tough team to gauge. Even with a solid forward group and plenty of upside on defense, it’s hard to pencil the Kraken into one of the three divisional spots in the Pacific. Vegas and Edmonton should get two of them, and it feels like L.A. or a resurgent Calgary team will claim the third. It’s hard to say. What if Vancouver gets its act together? There are so many variables at play.

We’ll say Seattle finishes fourth in the Pacific for the second consecutive year, ahead of L.A. and behind Calgary. The Pacific will send five teams to the playoffs, and it’ll be the Kings taking on the Golden Knights. That’ll set the stage for a rematch between Seattle and top-seeded Colorado — and this time, the Avs will take it in a sweep.

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