2026-27 NHL team preview: Seattle Kraken

Sep 19, 2026, 11:00 EDT

Seattle Kraken right wing Jordan Eberle (7) celebrates with Seattle Kraken center Matty Beniers (10) and Seattle Kraken left wing Jared McCann (19) after scoring an empty net goal during the third period against the New Jersey Devils at Climate Pledge Arena.

Credit: Mandatory Credit: Blake Dahlin-Imagn Images

LAST SEASON

If I had to sum up the Seattle Kraken‘s 2025-26 season in two words, it would be “they existed.”

Among the many storylines of the season, the Kraken were never really front of mind in the hockey world, and it showed in their on-ice play. They hung around in the playoff race for most of the season but never actually threatened to overtake any of the top teams in the Pacific Division. They were never more than seven wins above .500, but also never less than three games below. Come Trade Deadline time, they weren’t in a position to sell off notable names to bring in future assets, nor were they promising enough to aggressively add, only bringing in Bobby McMann (although to their credit, they did try to acquire Artemi Panarin). When the season concluded, the Kraken were 11 points out of a playoff spot, yet they were only the sixth-worst team in the league, and with the San Jose Sharks winning the second-overall pick, Seattle actually dropped down a spot in the draft.

The season summed up the overall problems with the Kraken and the roster construction they’ve run with since joining the league in 2021: running four lines with middle-six forwards and three pairings with second-pair defensemen makes the team too deep to suck and accumulate high draft picks, but it also lacks the talent to truly contend for playoff spots and Stanley Cups. By not committing to either path, they continue to drift in middling perpetuity, with no end in sight.

So what did Jason Botterill do to solve that? He traded a first-round pick to the Florida Panthers for the heavily underused Mackie Samoskevich, let Jamie Oleksiak, Jaden Schwartz and Eeli Tolvanen walk, and signed the hulking six-foot-nine Curtis Douglas in free agency. No seriously, that was it. In Botterill’s defense, he did try to acquire a star player again by reaching out to the Dallas Stars for Jason Robertson, but the winger blocked the trade. So this is what the Kraken were stuck with. In an offseason where salaries skyrocketed, it wasn’t the worst summer to sit out, but it still felt extremely underwhelming, even by the Kraken’s standards.

Will the Kraken finally find the juice in their lineup to recapture the magic of the 2022-23 run to the playoffs? Will this finally be the year where the wheels fall off completely and the team actually sucks? Or will they continue to linger in the murky middle, accomplishing nothing in the process?

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Mackie Samoskevich, RW
Curtis Douglas, C

Departures

Jamie Oleksiak, D (Van)
Eeli Tolvanen, RW (NYR)
Jaden Schwartz, LW (Col)

OFFENSE

To the surprise of no one, the Kraken’s lack of star talent showed in their offensive output for the 2025-26 season. They scored the fifth-fewest goals per game (2.73), had a so-so power play (19.46%, 21st), and were behind only the Chicago Blackhawks at generating chances with a 2.36 5v5 expected goals for per 60 minutes. Considering their leading scorer was Jordan Eberle with 26 goals and 55 points (one of only three players to reach 20 goals and two to reach 50 points), it makes sense why they failed to create much offensively.

But the Kraken are running it back with an almost identical forward group, with the only changes being the departures of Schwartz and Tolvanen, and the addition of Samoskevich. I’m a fan of Samoskevich’s game, and I think he’ll take big steps this season in a larger role than he got in Florida, but if Seattle is expecting him to be a difference-maker for their offense, they’ll likely be disappointed. He may help with generating chances, but his production is more akin to a bottom-six forward at this point, even when you account for his ice time. In an absolute best-case scenario, he may replace the 23 goals and 62 points they got from Schwartz and Tolvanen last season, but I wouldn’t expect him to build on that.

But Samoskevich joins a forward core of players quite similar to his skill level. The Kraken do have some quality players, whether it’s Eberle’s consistency at all facets of the game, Jared McCann’s play-driving ability, Bobby McMann’s finishing ability, Matty Benier’s defensive prowess, Kaapo Kakko’s playmaking or Shane Wright’s unfortunately underdeveloped skills. There is some semblance of a solid offensive core, but each player would be better served as a complementary piece to a more-talented core of players. None of these players is meant to be the guy on a team, but in Seattle, they have to be. That’s not accounting for the rest of their roster either, which is mostly made up of offensively limited bottom-sixers like Frederick Gaudreau and Berkly Catton or overpaid has-beens like Chandler Stephenson.

Vince Dunn and Brandon Montour bring a little bit more offensive spice on the back end, both boasting strong puck-moving abilities with an identically near-elite knack for finding the back of the net (both are tied for 34th in 5v5 goals per 60 minutes in the last three seasons). But like the aforementioned forwards, both defensemen suffer from the same problem. They’d be better suited on a team with an already established player to take a lot of the tough minutes and quarterback the top power play unit, while they play a second-pair role and operate on the second power play unit. Ryker Evans has also developed an offensive touch as he’s gotten more accustomed to the NHL game, but the rest of the defense corps handles the puck like a grenade more often than not.

DEFENSE

When teams lack the star power to dominate offensively, they usually pivot to a sturdy defensive game to overwhelm their opponents. The Carolina Hurricanes just won a Stanley Cup with that playbook last season, and even their worst players would be a significant upgrade on the Kraken’s group. So you’d think Seattle would at least have the defensive structure to compensate for their poor offense. But that wasn’t the case in 2025-26. Much like their offense, most of their defensive stats could be found at the bottom of the page, as they allowed the 10th-most goals (3.13 goals against per game), were tied for the seventh-worst 5v5 expected goals against (2.96), and had the second-worst penalty kill rate (72.22%).

That’s not to say the Kraken are lacking in defensively responsible players, especially up front. Whether it’s the top end of their lineup with Beniers (-0.106 5v5 regularized adjusted plus minus expected goals against per 60 in the past three seasons), Eberle (-0.053), McCann (-0.041), or their secondary/depth players like Douglas (-0.091), McMann (-0.037), Jacob Melanson (-0.019), Ben Meyers (-0.07), Samoskevich (-0.069) and Ryan Winterton (-0.04), there’s a fair amount of forwards who know how to play well in their own end.

Beniers is certainly the highlight of Seattle’s defensive forwards. Even if he hasn’t lived up to his second-overall pedigree with his production, he’s turned into one of the game’s better shutdown centers and should get some recognition for the Selke Trophy in the coming years. He’s been handed the keys the past two seasons and received a bulk of the toughest minutes for the Kraken. If they could ever convince a top-flight offensive center to come to Seattle, Beniers would be the perfect second-line center to complement that player.

On the back end, the Kraken are lacking more in terms of defensive responsibility, and perhaps that’s where their results suffered on the year. Evans (-0.098 5v5 RAPM xGA/60 since 2023) and Cale Fleury (-0.093) have emerged as intelligent defenders but don’t play too many minutes against top competition. The bulk of the minutes go to Dunn, Montour, Adam Larsson and Ryan Lindgren, and of the four, only Montour finds himself with a positive defensive impact (-0.018), a bit surprising considering his reputation as a pure offensive defenseman. Dunn (0.113), Larsson (0.084) and Lindgren (0.121) not only find themselves in the negatives, but they are significantly hindering the Kraken’s defensive play, which isn’t ideal for players deployed like top shutdown options.

GOALTENDING

The Kraken will once again run with a tandem of Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer in net, which has basically been the only tandem they’ve known in their franchise: the duo have started in 333 of Seattle’s 410 games since joining the league. Daccord has taken over the starter/1A role in recent years, and will likely see more starts again this season. While a look at his boxcar stats would suggest he had an off year (.897 save percentage), the underlying numbers indicate he was just doing his best behind the Kraken’s horrible defensive structure, as his 13.32 5v5 goals saved above expected is just as good as his prior two seasons. He did turn 30 last month, so who knows when age may impact his play, but until then, the Kraken have one of the better starters in the league.

The real difference maker will be what version of Philipp Grubauer shows up this year. Grubauer has had a horrendous time since signing with the Kraken in 2021, but last season, he actually found his game again, producing his first SV% above .900 in five years (.909) and his second positive 5v5 GSAx in the last six years (21.66). If he can continue to play at that level, or even just play closer to replacement level instead of well below it, it will really help out the Kraken for any attempt at a playoff push.

COACHING

Lane Lambert enters his second season with the Kraken, and while his tenure with the New York Islanders didn’t overly impress, it’s hard to look at his first campaign in Seattle and put any blame solely on him. Did he make the most of this Kraken roster? Not really, and to be fair, they put up their worst defensive metrics in five years as a franchise under him, something that was also an issue on Long Island (the Isles were 19th and 26th in 5v5 xGA/60 in Lambert’s two seasons there). But he also didn’t exactly get a great roster to work with either. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, because like with their roster choices, the Kraken also tend to go for middling hirings on the coaching staff side: none of Dave Hakstol, Dan Bylsma or Lambert has impressed in Seattle.

There is one change to the Kraken’s coaching staff this year though. With Jessica Campbell moving on from the organization to the New Jersey Devils, Pascal Vincent was hired in her place. It’s Vincent’s first NHL gig since his forgettable one-year stint as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets, but his time as an assistant with Columbus and the Winnipeg Jets were solid enough that there shouldn’t be concern about him joining the fold. He’ll oversee the team’s forwards and power play, and so long as his issues with developing his players in Columbus don’t return, he should be capable in the role.

ROOKIES

Another issue with the Kraken being deep enough to ice a roster of decent NHLers but not actually be competitive is it doesn’t leave a lot of room for their rookies to take up spots on the team. Jake O’Brien and Oscar Fisker Molgaard are probably the two closest to cracking the NHL lineup right now, both for different reasons. This will be O’Brien’s first pro season, so he likely starts in the AHL, but he certainly has the talent to make the Kraken if he impresses. Meanwhile, Molgaard has a full pro season under his belt now, and even played in 13 NHL games last season, not looking out of place either. He has the experience to justify a promotion at some point.

Otherwise there are a few other options who aren’t quite good enough to make the NHL yet, but with a good season or a plethora of injuries, they could find themselves on the Kraken at some point. Jagger Firkus is likely on Seattle’s radar after 56 points in 63 games with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. While Ty Nelson and Eduard Sale have holes in their game, they have a couple AHL seasons under their belts and are at least accustomed to pro hockey. I wouldn’t hold my breath on any of these players getting games with the Kraken this season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did either.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. What will the Kraken do with Jared McCann and Vince Dunn? Speaking of star players, McCann and Dunn may be the closest thing Seattle has to franchise legends, at least of their original crop of expansion selections. McCann has been a reliable scorer with fantastic underlying numbers, and Dunn’s production has never jumped off the page among league leaders, but he’s a quietly consistent 5v5 producer. Both are still top-line/pairing players, and if Seattle was truly in a competitive window, they’d be useful to keep around. But as both enter the final year of their contracts, they could prove to bring in a solid haul on the trade market. Both players will be 30 when the Trade Deadline comes around as well, so if we’re realistic about the Kraken requiring a rebuild, neither player will be effective when they swing back around for contention. The Kraken have opted to not move on from these types of players at the deadline in past lost seasons, will they change their ways this year if they’re in the same spot?

2. When will Seattle’s quest for a star player end? The Kraken’s lack of star talent has been the storyline for the entirety of the franchise’s existence. From the underwhelming selections at the expansion draft in 2021 to the impressively deep playoff team in 2022-23 to the middling rosters in between since then, the Kraken have lacked a true difference maker on their team. But not for a lack of trying either, as this past year alone they’ve swung for Panarin and Robertson, only for both players to block the trades. Seattle desperately needs that next-level player to take another step as a franchise. Whether they find it at the Trade Deadline or are finally bad enough to finish at the bottom of the league and can draft one of the top prospects of the upcoming class, it can’t come soon enough.

3. Will this be the season Seattle finally commits to a rebuild? The public demands it. The Kraken have toiled in mediocrity for far too long, too good to have high draft picks but too bad to make the playoffs. And yet they continue to double down on their “win by committee” team build and accumulate middle-lineup talent instead of hitting the reset button. Will this season be the one that makes it obvious for Jason Botterill to commit to a rebuild, or will they continue to close their eyes, plug their ears and sing “lalalalalala” to ignore the problem?

PREDICTION

After a surprise playoff appearance in 2023, the Kraken have spent the last three seasons doing a whole lot of nothing. Their record has never gotten above .500 again, and they’ve never selected higher than seventh-overall at the draft. In my eyes, nothing occurred this summer to indicate that this will change this year.

At best, the team deals with enough injuries and bad seasons to tank them into the top five of the draft. But it’s hard to envision a roster like this punching above its weight for a playoff position, barring major steps forward from Beniers and Wright, O’Brien playing over his head and acting as an offensive catalyst and Daccord having a Vezina-caliber season. Even one of those happening feels unlikely, and all three happening still feels like not enough to make a playoff team out of Seattle. Expect another finish in the range of 20th to 25th leaguewide.

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