We The Fans: Kraken Need to UTILIZE Transfer Market for Skaters to Get Away from Losing- Part 1

Its no secret that the Kraken are struggling and the fan base is in need of a lifeboat… It does seem however that the hockey operations executives are going to again double down on a homegrown approach rather than trying to make moves that utilize the rest of the league to help better the team for the long term approach, if that is indeed going to be the plan in Seattle. As of the moment it seems die-hard hockey fans in the area may be more interested in success of young Kraken Prospects in league-below franchise and AHL affiliate offensive juggernaut, Coachella Valley Firebirds, than success of a rather offensively lack-luster Kraken Hockey Team which is bottom of the league in goals and defensive special teams.

In recent years the Kraken have lacked consistent goaltending and struggled on the power play. While seemingly also having managed to score their way into 2023 NHL Post-Season before falling to the Dallas Stars in 7 games after a late heart-breaker by young 19 year old star, Dallas Star Forward, Wyatt Johnston. This year is different, as the only things that are currently going right for the Seattle Hockey Club who have since regressed to the bottom of the league offensively after losing many notable contributors to free agency and two coaching staff changes later has been the solid goaltending and a recently successful, as of late, power play. The question that should be echoing through the organization is “Where do we go from here to help improve the quality of professional hockey in Seattle?”

Bill Guerin said in his Quinn Hughes Trade Press Conference “If the hockey is good, the players will love playing here.” Respectfully, Seattle has a similar sports market to Minnesota and those executives realized the roster they had, however playoff consistent, did not make their fan base feel like they had a genuine shot to win the cup. Few general managers get to the NHL level and even fewer fail to take the risk to keep their franchise relevant whenever a change is necessary. The Kraken do not need one guy to save the world. They need a few changes to spice things up in Seattle and make people hate seeing their abbreviation on the schedule. At its core that is how you get fans excited about the game every night, by putting a team on the ice that plays exciting and fast, with scoring and skill. Defensive structure does not win out in hockey, because the other team will wear you down, due to the fact of it being the only sport where you have to make changes while the objective is live and you only get one timeout a game. Eventually at this level a team can use their skill, skating, and speed to out score you and make it look rather frustratingly easy such is the case in Edmonton.

I set out to find realistic trade scenarios utilizing every player on the roster to create hypothetical scenarios that could help the team improve their performance and build for the future, as well as helping keeping the more die-hard and competitive hockey fans engaged for the duration of the NHL season. Hypothetically, as long as you are in playoff contention and winning some games, all of the games have seemingly more value to sports fans and hockey is a business at the end of the day.

The magic of the Stanley Cup is everyone wants to feel as though they have a chance to win it all, every year, regardless if you are building for the future or not and things have failed to meet expectations and have not felt that way since the red hot start by a team that has since cooled off; all while seemingly very early in the season still for the Seattle Hockey Team.

Fans do not pay money to come and watch their team play with the expectation of losing. No one player is bigger than the franchise. Professional Hockey is a self-healing organization much like the military. However, a bias disclaimer needs to be made on behalf of the situation in Seattle as goaltending is not an issue this team needs to worry about trading for. Joey Daccord is a beloved player, icon, and a face of the franchise; who is the seemingly undeniably plot invincible “Big man on Campus” in Seattle. Joey D is in fact just that guy, pal. His German counter and long time Kraken Netminder, Philip Grubauer has been solid for the Kraken this season, and its probably unlikely that the Kraken retain the cap hit when they would be gambling on whether he would make another team in the league better on their buck. With Matt Murray out with Injury, the team needs to address the skaters and start restructuring if they are going to stay competitive in the modern NHL. The only thing that’s proven constant is change and adaptation when confronted with adversity.

Everyone should know this is not a league that will feel sorry for you, whether you are dealing with injuries or struggling offensively. The common fan does not think about skills players provide to their coaches playing style system and task they are being asked to preform for that team, at the margin they are looking at player performance and ability based on statistics or the all too common in hockey, the eye test rather than from an employee tasking stand point. “What does this player do well? What does he do poorly? What do we need him to do for our hockey team?” At its core hockey is a team sport, and all the teams should bring their best effort every night and attempt to win, because that’s what WE THE FANS PAID TO SEE. Part 2 will feature my top 5 trades as well as honorable mentions I believe would help this team create more offense to improve this team and players id like to see the team try and acquire either through trades or through free agency.

Very Respectfully,

Caleb Nance