Seattle Kraken Offseason Review

SEATTLE, Wash. – The second and least stressful, so far, off-season in Seattle Kraken history is in the books. The offseason started for the Kraken with the announcement that their AHL affiliation would be moved from Toledo to Coachella Valley and be known as the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Next up for the offseason was the annual EHE entry draft.

Seattle held five picks in the 2022 entry draft including their own 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th round picks in addition to owning LA’s 3^rd round pick. With their first round select, which came in at 16^th overall, the Kraken selected Russian winger, Danila Yurov.

“Sitting in the middle of the draft order we felt we could reach a bit for a guy we liked. While some teams might have been hesitant to take a Russian player this year, we felt that he was the best guy available at 16 and have no problem waiting for him to make it over to North America, possibly next season. We see him as a top six guy that can play against the other team’s top line.” Said Seattle’s scouting director, Tom Riddle.

With their 2^nd and 3^rd round picks Seattle selected puck-moving defensemen Tristan Luneau and Tomas Hamara. With the Kings’ 3^rd round pick the Kraken took centreman Bryce McConnell-Barker and ended their draft by taking another center in Jordan Gustafson at pick 110.

“We think we had a pretty solid draft this year. But that’s also my job so if I said anything else, I’d probably get fired. The defensemen we took have shown they know how to move the puck which should translate to the pros and both centermen are putting up points in their respective leagues so far which is encouraging.” Quipped Riddle.

After the draft wrapped up Seattle’s front office seemingly went on a 2-month long vacation as no further moves were made until the first day of December. After being rumored to be on the move since the trade deadline last season, Claude Giroux was traded down the Pacific coast to LA. In return, the Kraken received recent 9^th overall pick, Frank Nazar, as well as 2019 19^th overall pick, Thomas Harley, and $1,750,000.

“This deal came together pretty quickly. Todd contacted me about Claude and within 24 hours the deal was finalized. I called Giroux after the deal was completed and let him know that we appreciated all that he did for our team and wished him the best in LA. I know they’ll take care of him there and he’ll get fighting for the Stanley Cup for the foreseeable future. As far as what we got in return, going into this year’s draft we really like Nazar, but knew there would be no way he was going to be available to us by the time we made a pick. He unfortunately will miss most, if not all, of the NCAA season after sustaining a lower body injury before the season began. We know he’ll work his way back and be ready to play for the University of Michigan next season and look forward to him one day joining another former Wolverine, Matty Beniers, on our top line. We’re quite familiar with Harley as we drafted him when we were in LA. We have monitored his progress so far and are exciting to be adding him to our young roster. He’ll spend at least this season in Coachella, but we are expecting big things from him in the future.” Said Kraken GM, Brandyn Errickson.

Up next on the offseason schedule was unrestricted and restricted free agency. Seattle was able to re-sign their existing RFA’s without any of them getting a competing offer sheet. They were also able to keep defenseman Torey Krug in the fold after signing him to a 3-year contract on the day UFA opened. The Kraken also went out and signed centerman Radek Faksa who is expected to play on the 3^rd/4^th line in Seattle this season. Other than adding a few players for the Firebirds, the Kraken remained relatively silent in unrestricted free agency.

That now brings us to present day where the Kraken are three games into a four-game preseason schedule with an unflattering 0-2-1 record. After finishing last season on a 9-game winning streak and only missing the playoffs by 5 points, some might think this team is poised to make a playoff push in just their second EHE season. However, the offseason trade of team leader Claude Giroux would probably indicate otherwise. When asked about what he expects from his team this season, GM Errickson was pretty non-comital, “We know how that trade might look as well as the lack of big-time signings during free agency. But we think this is a good time to try and add as many young players and prospects as possible. Even if we had the monetary availability to go out and sign the top free agents, we don’t think it would’ve done much more than make us a first round exiting team in the playoffs. We want to build something long term here and to do that you need to make some tough choices like trading your points leader from las year. All I would ask of our great fanbase is to just stick with us.”