During the first 60 minutes of Detroit-Seattle on Monday afternoon, it appeared that every Red Wings goal was designed particularly to tease the Kraken about their flaws. The first was a powerful slapper by rookie defenseman Moritz Seider, a pillar of this franchise’s long rebuild who was picked in the first round in 2019—when the NHL’s newest expansion team was not yet old enough to participate. Lucas Raymond swept up a rebound for the second—everything about Seider applies to him, with the exception of swapping defense for forward and 2019 for 2020. On the third, Daniel Sprong, the Kraken’s surprise scorer last season, finished a two-on-one for the red and white in his first game back after leaving in free agency.
Seattle tied all of these goals but was defeated in overtime by Ben Chiarot. Chiarot’s piece isn’t really enviable, therefore the theme disintegrates there. However, witnessing Detroit, the sixth-best record in the East, face Seattle, the 11th-best record in the West, highlighted some of the Kraken’s inherent disadvantages, which have prevented them from enjoying a Vegas-style rocket ride to the top of the league.
In the Kraken’s inaugural season, 2021-22, what was expected to be a drab but slightly successful club of grinders was derailed by a surprising disaster in goal. Even if the goalkeeper play did not improve significantly the next year, some strong blue-lining and a burst of unexpected offensive sparks propelled them to 40 points and the second round of the playoffs. This year, however, has witnessed a setback. Joey Daccord has been a virtuoso between the pipes following a good year in the minors, and he is now the reason Seattle is not sinking. Meanwhile, the defense has weakened slightly, and last year’s scoring appears to have been a fluke. What happened?
Jared McCann was a great candidate for regression after scoring a career-high 40 goals last season, but he’s still the team’s top scorer despite a somewhat slower pace. The Kraken have lost ground almost everywhere. Matty Beniers is the long-term plan’s crown gem, at 21 and coming off a Rookie of the Year win, but after playing 94 games last year, he definitely hit a wall, and he’s been relegated to the dreaded “flashes of brilliance” as he’s scored just eight times this season. Sprong, a total surprise contributor last season, has been sprung, and the Kraken’s erratic attempts to replace his performance, such as erstwhile Edmonton underachiever Kailer Yamamoto, have failed to produce meaningful results. The remaining players include Tye Kartye, Jaden Schwartz, Jordan Eberle, and Eeli Tolvanen, who were not drafted at the all-star game but were able to be acquired through other means. (They assigned the final four to different teams, so no one had to be formally selected last.)
How can a team create a superstar? In normal circumstances, you draft and grow, but the Kraken have only started drafting in 2021. Beniers is on the right road, Shane Wright (2022) remains a mystery, and no other draftees have scored a goal for them. Another option is to sign a high-profile free agent. After their first season, the Kraken attempted a half-measure of that with André Burakovsky, but he has rarely been able to return to the ice in peak condition. The other possibility is to win a trade by a lopsided margin, as the Panthers did to get Sam Reinhart. Ron Francis has come out ahead on some transactions, such as the one that netted Sprong and the large draft-pick haul at his first deadline, but not in a way that can quickly change his franchise’s destiny.
Essentially, Vegas threw off the entire grading curve for expansion clubs, and the Kraken’s success last season created excessive expectations for this one. Building a squad from the ground up takes time, especially when done with the care that Seattle has shown. Even after three years of construction, the majority of the work remains unfinished.
