Five potential trade destinations for Kraken center Shane Wright

Jul 9, 2026, 13:57 EDT

Five potential trade destinations for Kraken center Shane Wright

Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

Save for an underwhelming crop of unrestricted free agents, we’re currently in the midst of one of the most fascinating NHL offseasons in recent memory.

With the salary cap skyrocketing, the NHL’s 32 franchises have been emboldened to spend like never before. We’ve seen multiple offer sheets, including one worth $90 million over just five years; meanwhile, teams are giving away draft picks like candy to bring in previously unavailable players on the trade market.

Seattle Kraken center Shane Wright is the latest in a long line of intriguing young players to enter trade discussions this summer. Earlier this month, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the Kraken have been actively working with Wright’s agent, Kurt Overhardt, who said the team has “agreed to move Shane this summer to a team in need of a top young center.”

There are certainly plenty of teams out there that could use one of those, including the Kraken themselves. But it just hasn’t worked in Seattle for Wright, who followed up a reasonably promising 44-point rookie season by recording just 12 goals and 27 points in 74 games in 2025-26. The Kraken haven’t been able to find a spot for the 22-year-old anywhere close to the top of their lineup, and he finished 10th on the team in average power-play time last season. A change is needed.

Seattle selected Wright with the No. 4 overall pick four years ago. Before that, he was granted exceptional status to play in the OHL at age 15. With that kind of pedigree — as well as the relative scarcity of young, right-handed centers — Wright should be a hot commodity on the trade market. As Friedman noted, the Kraken “made it extremely clear they expect a fair price and won’t be pressured into anything they don’t want to do.”

Here are five teams that make sense as potential landing spots for Wright this summer.

Calgary Flames

We’re not even a month removed from the Flames pulling off a trade for Simon Nemec, who went two picks ahead of Wright in the 2022 draft. Led by Nemec, Carson Carels, and Zayne Parekh, the Flames have one of the strongest groups of young defensemen in the NHL, and they’re also set in goal for years to come with Dustin Wolf and Tobias Trejbal.

But the Flames are still actively searching for more help up the middle, and while they’ll still probably try to land their future cornerstone at that position through the draft, it’s also not every day that a recent No. 4 overall pick becomes available. As it stands, the Flames’ center prospects include a trio of recent first-rounders in Cole Reschny, Cullen Potter, and Jack Hextall, each of whom projects as more of a middle-six option at the NHL level.

If the Kraken are looking for current NHL roster pieces as part of any possible deal, would Connor Zary or Morgan Frost make sense for Seattle? Both players have been mentioned in recent trade rumors and posted production similar to or better than Wright’s last season. The Flames also have a large stockpile of draft picks to draw from, including the three they received from the Minnesota Wild as part of the Blake Coleman trade earlier in July. Flames GM Craig Conroy has the ability to make this work if he deems it the right course of action.

Chicago Blackhawks

Things haven’t exactly worked out as expected for the Blackhawks under general manager Kyle Davidson, who took over in 2021 and won the right to draft Connor Bedard less than two years later. The Hawks have yet to take a meaningful step forward in the Bedard Era, having finished 31st in the NHL this past season, and they’ll now be forced to deal with the ramifications of Bedard being sidelined for the next four months while recovering from a shoulder injury he sustained during an offseason skate.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom in Chicago, where Anton Frondell, Artyom Levshunov, and Frank Nazar have already become key parts of the club’s core group of young talent. The Blackhawks also now have Bowen Byram, whom they’ll be paying $12.5 million per season through 2033 after parting with an enormous package of futures to acquire him from the Buffalo Sabres. If that deal is any indication, Davidson is willing to be aggressive in his bid to bring the Blackhawks back to relevance, and a player like Wright could be a nice fit behind (or alongside) Bedard — assuming he’s none the worse for wear after his shoulder surgery.

After giving up the No. 4 pick in 2026 for Byram, it might not make sense for Chicago to give up more significant assets in another deal, even for another young player. Conversely, the Blackhawks have three 2027 first-round picks to play with, and it also might not make sense to use all of them on unproven teenagers. Wright hasn’t gotten much of an opportunity to prove himself in Seattle, but in Chicago, it’s safe to say he’d get significantly more responsibility and compete with the less experienced Frank Nazar and Anton Frondell for a plum spot on the depth chart. They have the flexibility to make it happen, but Blackhawks fans are right to be wary of what the team might give up.

New Jersey Devils

It may be speculative to discuss the Flames and Blackhawks potentially making a play for Wright, but it’s far less so to loop in the Devils, who have already taken a run at landing a highly touted young center this offseason. On Wednesday, we learned the Devils were unsuccessful in their bid for Utah Mammoth center Barrett Hayton, whom they signed to a one-year offer sheet last week. After missing out on Hayton, the No. 5 overall pick in 2018, would it not make sense for New Jersey to make a play for somebody like Wright?

Had the Devils managed to pry Hayton away from Utah, they would’ve sent the Mammoth their own 2027 second-round pick as compensation. Wright is younger, was drafted one pick higher and certainly had a more impressive junior career, so it tracks that New Jersey might have to give up a little bit more to get him. The Devils’ existing forward depth is not particularly strong, especially compared to that of their Metropolitan Division rivals, and after acquiring a pair of future first-round picks from the Flames in the Nemec trade, they do have some excess draft capital to play with.

Jack Hughes, much like Bedard, has already dealt with more than his fair share of injury issues in his young career, but the Devils have experienced more team success during his tenure, including two playoff appearances. They have yet to progress into a true Eastern Conference contender, but it wouldn’t be too shocking to see that change as their young players continue to develop. Would a forward group led by Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, and Wright be good enough to make some noise?

Pittsburgh Penguins

Under general manager Kyle Dubas, the Penguins are doing their very best to retool on the fly — preparing for the future while maintaining a certain semblance of contention while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Erik Karlsson are still playing at a high level. Each of those players is entering the final year of his contract in 2026-27, and to say the clock is ticking would be an understatement.

Dubas has a long track record of buying low on skilled players with untapped potential, and he did particularly well acquiring Egor Chinakhov from the Columbus Blue Jackets in that fashion just last season. At the same time, the Penguins suddenly have an uncharacteristically strong pool of prospects and young roster players, headlined by Ben Kindel, Harrison Brunicke, Rutger McGroarty, and the Ruck twins. Wright occupies something of a middle ground between the teenagers and the mid-20s cohort, and if a greater opportunity in Pittsburgh allows him to live up to his billing, he could help the Penguins to remain competitive even after Crosby and Co. are gone.

The Penguins have seven second-round picks across the next three drafts. They might not have the current roster player the Blue Jackets are looking for, and perhaps they already filled Wright’s spot by adding Hendrix Lapierre from the Washington Capitals; at the same time, everybody knows about Dubas’ fondness for former OHL stars, even those who didn’t play for the Soo Greyhounds. On paper, Wright to Pittsburgh just makes a ton of sense.

Toronto Maple Leafs

And that brings us to Dubas’s former team, which just selected Gavin McKenna with the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft and is looking to pivot back towards contention after a brutally underwhelming 2025-26 season. Led by John Chayka, the proto-Dubas in certain respects, the Maple Leafs have been one of the NHL’s most active teams this summer, adding the likes of Sergei Bobrovsky, Darren Raddysh, Jack Roslovic, Colton Sissons, Brandon Duhaime, Teddy Blueger, Nick Paul — and McKenna, of course, who projects to slot into Mitch Marner’s old playmaker role alongside Auston Matthews.

Even with all those moves, Toronto still doesn’t have much of a pipeline down the middle. Matthews only has two more years on his contract, John Tavares is 35 years old, and the Maple Leafs don’t possess their next two first-round draft picks, holding only Colorado’s 2027 first-rounder. They were extremely fortunate to land McKenna, and considering the precarious position ex-GM Brad Treliving left them in, their only real path forward is to double down on the core they already have.

For whatever reason, we’ve heard plenty to suggest that both Treliving and Chayka have discussed trades involving young winger Matthew Knies, who is signed through 2031 at a reasonable $7.75-million cap hit. But wouldn’t it make more sense to make a move to add a player in the same age range to create something of a succession plan in case things continue to go south? It seems natural to bring in an Ontario boy with more than enough versatility to slide cleanly into Toronto’s forward group — but, ahem, only if the price is Wright …

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