Jessica Campbell set to skate into history with Kraken as season opens

SEATTLE – In the Kraken’s season opener, when the cameras pan to the benches, ESPN viewers will get a glimpse of a first. Jessica Campbell will assume her place behind the players as the St. Louis Blues visit Climate Pledge Arena.

“It’s been a really unbelievable few months,” Campbell said.

Since July 3, when her hiring as a full-time NHL assistant coach was announced, countless old friends, coaches and teammates have resurfaced and checked in. They’ve offered her a different perspective on her place in hockey history.

“When you’re in the bottle, you don’t really see what’s coming from the outside or how others see it,” Campbell, 32, said. “I’m so in the work right now, it’s hard to see what everyone on the outside is seeing.”

What everyone will see, if all goes well, is a smooth launch, the result of a breakneck training camp that spanned less than three weeks. And perhaps a few will see a new avenue for women in the sport.

Before the Kraken’s inaugural season three years ago, former NHL coach Dan Bylsma took an assistant coaching job with Seattle’s temporary American Hockey League affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers. Seattle’s AHL counterpart, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, launched the next season and Bylsma was promoted to head coach.

In a recent interview, Kraken general manager Ron Francis said he proposed it to Bylsma — would he be open to having a woman on his staff? It had never happened before. Bylsma looked into the idea, and Campbell’s name kept coming up.

Bylsma didn’t have a direct line to her, so he reached out through the “contact me” box on Campbell’s coaching website. Campbell thought the “nonchalant request” was spam at first.

“He put me directly on this path,” Campbell said. “I can’t say enough how fortunate I’ve been to not only learn from him, to be around someone who’s won a Stanley Cup, knows how to win and has established himself and even more so brings so much enthusiasm to the rink every day.

“He really allows, encourages and empowers every person who’s around him to be themselves.”

When Bylsma was promoted to Kraken coach this May, Campbell followed.

Bylsma might have kicked off this quick ascent, and he will probably always have a place on Campbell’s Wikipedia page. But it’s not a one-way street. The passion and energy he’s trying to bring to this chapter of his career come naturally to Campbell.

“She’s made me a better coach,” Bylsma said. “She’s not the only one learning.”

Campbell was a forward at Cornell and spent three seasons in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. She captained the Canadian under-20 world championship team in 2010. She last played in Sweden, which is where she transitioned to a skating coach. During the pandemic, she started coaching high-level players in the Kelowna, British Columbia, area preparing for the 2020 Stanley Cup playoff “bubble.”

Just before the Firebirds came calling, she worked as an assistant and a skills coach for the Nurnberg Ice Tigers of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga in Germany. She was the first woman on the coaching staff of a men’s national team at the 2022 IIHF Men’s World Championship.

In 2022, she started with the Firebirds and took charge of the forwards and the power play. The Firebirds ranked third and first in the AHL in goals, respectively. The power play was 14th of 32 teams both seasons. Coachella Valley reached the championship series twice.

She worked with prospects such as Tye Kartye, an undrafted 21-year-old forward who made a memorable jump to the NHL during the 2023 Kraken playoff run. As they built up their prospect pool from scratch, the Kraken filled the minors with veterans. There were things for them to address, too.

Through one-on-one sessions, skating and skill sessions, Campbell figures out how they like to be coached and need to be supported. Building confidence means “being there in the trenches” through the preparation.

The video work they did went a long way, 29-year-old journeyman John Hayden said.

“There’s an element of sports psychology and theory that she helped [me] with, which was good,” Hayden added. “Making sure guys were confident, feeling like their best version of themselves.”

They ride highs and lows, team and personal, together. Only once “real, true” communication has been established, there’s time for tough love.

“Sometimes it’s [just] a reminder,” Campbell said. “I think sometimes we can lose sight of our own gifts.

“I’m a big believer in helping them realize what they’re best at. They should know, but it’s also the job of the coach to help them be their best version every night. To coach them up to that.”

Campbell and Bob Woods, the only member of Bylsma’s coaching staff completely new to the organization, are sorting out the Kraken power play. Dave Lowry, a holdover from Dave Hakstol’s three seasons as head coach, is overseeing the penalty kill.

The initial training camp group was eager and diligent, she said. But the new coaches were certainly challenging them with a heap of new information. The Kraken dropped their first two preseason games and three of four, but once habits started forming and the group was trimmed to true opening-night contenders, play unsurprisingly improved.

“We’re seeing trends in the right direction,” she said.