Kraken looking for a long-term option in their top six

The Seattle Kraken have started the season on a surprisingly strong note, as they find themselves in the playoff hunt with an 11-7-6 record. But, as they play out their fifth season in franchise history yet again without a true star forward, many struggle to believe they can hang on in the race.

So will the Kraken be looking to finally add a superstar forward to their top six? David Pagnotta joins Daily Faceoff Live to talk about the Kraken and what they’re currently looking for on the trade market.

David Pagnotta: They’re in LA this week going through their scouting meetings and just trying to map out a plan exactly to how this is going to look moving forward. They’ve got some good pieces, but they don’t have that superstar presence, and obviously that’s tough to get, but they’re still looking to see if they can add somebody in their top six.

They were in on Jordan Kyrou in the offseason, in and around the draft like a number of other teams were. That’s the caliber of player they’d like to bring in, somebody in his mid-20s who’s controllable, he’s got some term on his contract and they can get creative with potentially bringing him in.

Now, that type of move typically is more in summer, but we’re seeing, because of the salary cap, a lot of teams being more willing to make those types of moves in-season because they’ve got more cap flexibility now and obviously going to have a lot more moving forward because the caps going up.

The [Kraken] also have some internal business they got to take care of with a bunch of eligible free agents going into the summer. But Seattle’s trying to just figure out what they’ve got exactly and how and where they could potentially pounce in order to bring in one of these younger big fish that might potentially be available.

This might be a scenario where we see something out of left field, be it them, Utah, another team that’s also looking to add a big piece up front. Usually that takes a little bit of the exploratory process. You got to go out there and poke and see if there’s an avenue to explore a certain player on another team. “Hey, is this guy available? Would you listen?” As soon as you hear that “maybe” with a little bit of hesitancy, you’re going to want to try to pounce and convince that team to make that type of move.

So I think that’s where Seattle is at. And if it doesn’t happen in season, I think that’s something they’re going to continue to explore. But a priority for them is to bring in somebody that fits their top six, preferably on the first line, that can add some extra punch to that lineup.

You can watch the full episode here…