Analysis: The Kraken missed the mark again, and now they’re on the clock

At a fan event last Tuesday during which he announced a widespread pricing drop for season tickets, CEO Tod Leiweke welcomed a Jr. Kraken player to the mic for the last query. It turned out to be less of a question than a rallying cry.

“I think we should make a better team,” the youngster said, followed by some encouraging words. “So let’s do it.”

From his mouth to God’s ears, Leiweke replied. To use another biblical idiom on Easter weekend: Out of the mouth of babes.

For the third time in four years, the Kraken were bad. They barely sniffed a playoff spot, the true mark of a successful team and progressing franchise. There’s plenty of work to be done this offseason.

“There can’t be any other measure than it was a disappointment, in terms of what the team was able to do … and not getting into the playoffs,” coach Dan Bylsma said after last week’s finale. “So by any measure, that’s not a good season.”

Creating a winner from scratch is a difficult and unwieldy task, no question about it, made harder by the Vegas Golden Knights. The NHL’s last expansion team thrived instantly and provided an unfair comparison.

The big worry is the Kraken will be forgotten while they figure it out. There is widespread and increasingly louder fear that there’s an expiration date to casual Seattle fans’ interest, and it’s tied to the return of the NBA’s SuperSonics.

Kraken general manager Ron Francis will remain on board and keep moving toward his vision, Leiweke confirmed last week. Francis helped draft a team in Carolina that just made the playoffs for a sixth consecutive year. Francis wasn’t around to enjoy it, fired just before the run and the fun began.

So much of it is right. Climate Pledge Arena is beautiful. They nailed the branding. The Kraken’s sharply angled ‘S’ dots Seattle crowds. In just the team’s fourth year, there’s always a noticeably high number of ice blue jerseys in line to enter an opposing arena while the team is on the road.

They took a big swing this year in moving away from the traditional RSN model and launching Kraken Hockey Network, televising games free and over the air in order to get eyeballs on the work of their celebrated broadcast team and attract potential new fans.

The early returns were promising. Viewership roughly tripled during the first few weeks of the season compared to the previous two, from 13-15K viewers to an average of 50,000. The first game that aired on new partner KING5 reached over 100,000 households.

The missing element was the on-ice product. The Kraken added two expensive free-agent veterans and management touted an improved, maybe even good team.

After a franchise-best 4-2 start, hopes were up. But it certainly didn’t last. The Kraken took a step backward in 2024-25 and finished with fewer standings points than the year before, and 20 points outside a playoff spot.

“We wanted to be in the race, at least. The whole team is frustrated,” leading scorer Jared McCann said. “There’s no easy way to put this — we’re upset with ourselves and each other.”

They were out of the conversation by Christmas, but not quite bad enough to land a top-three draft pick. Perhaps last summer’s first-round pick Berkly Catton, who is currently tearing up the Western Hockey League playoffs with the Spokane Chiefs, will remind everyone that game-changers go eighth overall, too. But maybe not for a few more years, or maybe not ever. That’s the thing about prospects — sometimes success translates beautifully, sometimes it doesn’t.

As far as proven assets, the Kraken have a group of low-producing forwards, some of whom are perfect for the fourth line — looking at you, Mikey Eyssimont — but the rest of whom are middle-six on just about any playoff team. Many passers but few finishers, no clear-cut All-Star, plenty of role models and steady character guys. They couldn’t score enough to win in 2023-24, and they couldn’t score enough to keep up with the rate Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer were fishing the puck out of the net in 2024-25. The Kraken surrendered the ninth-most goals in the league, 3.20 per game on average.

The year they made the playoffs, they were able to outscore shoddy team defense and goaltending when it came up. The numbers many of the players were putting up were untenable. Leiweke called that second Kraken season “lightning in a bottle,” which is to say it was unlikely and lucky, in direct reference to the team’s four-line attack. They didn’t need stars — scoring by committee would do. From the top line down, everyone was a scoring threat.

The luck ran out. Dave Hakstol went from coach of the year nominee to fired, before his contract extension kicked in. The fast, aggressive style new coach Bylsma tried to put in place didn’t take right away, and when it started to, right around the trade deadline, it was too late and too inconsistent to really judge.

“Consistency” was one of the buzzwords during locker cleanouts. It’s a neat word, all-encompassing, suggesting they have what they need and it’s an easy fix if everyone just buys in. A full effort or something close to it is what separates the heavy hitters from the ones sadly bundling up their sticks this week. And it’s not just a matter of improving special teams. The Kraken struggled in many areas.

“That second year, making the leap and getting playoff hockey, that’s how you get a fan base,” Eberle said shortly after he returned to the lineup following a long-term injury. “You get into the playoffs. The fans get to understand what playoff hockey is all about, the intensity and the passion. (You) kind of build off that.

“Obviously the last several years haven’t gone the way we wanted, but the fans have been great with sticking with us.”

The front office has several months to do as the kid said and make a better team. Francis’ staff has draft picks to flip and potentially veterans and prospects to deal, even if it’s reluctantly. Leiweke promised an active summer.

“When Ron started this out, he made a statement, saying the only way to do this long-term is you’ve got to do it the hard way,” Leiweke told fans. “And we signed on for that. And so we knew that this wasn’t going to be a straight line.”