Kraken Need a Shake-Up to End Era of Passive Mediocrity
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Shane Wright shakes hands with Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis after being selected as the number four overall pick to the Seattle Kraken in the first round of the 2022 NHL Draft at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images [/caption]
The Seattle Kraken are in a tailspin. It seems their season is circling the drain, destined to sink to the bottom of the Pacific. Well, at least metaphorically speaking, as the Vancouver Canucks will finish in last place in the division standings.
MoneyPuck.com has the Kraken’s playoff chances, as of Sunday night, at 0.7%. They are all but eliminated. They had every opportunity to grab a spot in a historically bad Pacific Division and Western Conference. Yet, they still failed.
With the current Pacific Division leaders at 87 points with five games to play, this was a weak division. 87 points would be outside of a playoff spot altogether in the Eastern Conference. In short, the Kraken let a golden opportunity to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for just the second time in the franchise’s first five years slip away.
So, what now? Who is to blame?
It’s hard to blame first-year head coach Lane Lambert. He is Seattle’s third head coach in its first five seasons, yielding similarly underwhelming results year after year. At times, Lambert even seemed publicly exasperated with his team.
Talent-wise, the Kraken aren’t among the elites. However, players like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright have not taken those next steps after garnering hype as top-four draft picks in the first couple years of the franchise’s existence. Wright may fail to reach even 30 points this season. After a Calder Trophy-winning 2022-23 campaign, Beniers is yet to reach 50 points again and has only gotten to 20 goals once since.
The most constant thing for the Kraken from its inception to now, is parts of its leadership at the top that have remained unchanged aside from titles.
Ron Francis was the team’s first ever general manager, named so in July of 2019, two years before the Kraken ever took the ice. This past offseason, the Kraken were expected to make some changes among the brass due to poor performance on the ice. And they did, but again, only by title.
Despite his struggles as general manager, the Kraken promoted Francis to president of hockey operations. Jason Botterill became the functioning general manager. However, Francis still works with Seattle’s day-to-day operations.
It’s fair to wonder if a total overhaul at the top is necessary. A true cleaning of the house should be a full-scale cleanse, from the president of operations on down without recycling the same people in different roles.
Since their inception, the Kraken have made underwhelming personnel moves and failed to hit on most of their higher draft picks. They fail to make the key trades. They fail to bring in the big-time, franchise-altering free agents. And they struggle, most of all, in developing their own talent. Francis and Botterill have had their hand squarely in all of those cookie jars being in the front office from the start.
It’s fair to wonder if the Kraken will ever reach loftier heights with Francis making any sort of personnel decisions. He has been one of the only constants with this franchise since Day 1, with mediocre results being the only constant.
The Seattle Kraken should fully move on from Francis and Botterill to break this cycle of mediocrity that has defined the franchise since they first took the ice in 2021. There is no elite talent driving the roster. There is a constant stall in development among young core pieces, and a glaring lack of star power that leaves them as a non-factor even in a historically weak division.
Francis’s tenure has been defined by caution bordering on passivity. That simply won’t win in the NHL.
Kraken fans deserve better than mostly five years of passive mediocrity. It’s time to make the necessary, albeit painful, changes to make that happen sooner rather than later. The decision rests with Samantha Holloway and Todd Leiweke to make these sweeping moves as soon as the season ends inevitably without a playoff berth once again.
