Hey fellow Kraken fans. I've been following the team for a coupe years and I'm optimistic about how the season has started so far, but a bit nervous given the string of injuries to our forwards. Seems like the team has identity, the young guns are filling in well enough, and the defense has been quality.
However, it seems like many in the national media, especially the Athletic, doesn't seem to be paying much attention to the Kraken. The most egregious is that the NHL Power Rankings from today highlighted how well Matt Murray is playing (which is fair), but the article fails to mention that he is now on IR. Just feels like they go onto Hockey Reference at find a stat to mention. Article linked below. Let this also be a plug for the great work being done by (in no particular order): Sound of Hockey, Emerald City Hockey, and Davy Jones Locker Room.
Note: I don't really care where they rank the Kraken, more annoyed that if they highlight a player, they probably should mention if that player got injured.
Go Kraken!!
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6826365/2025/11/21/nhl-power-rankings-28/
28 comments
national media has always talked down to/about the kraken. i don’t mind because if we are exceeding their expectations we can make them eat their words.
The national media barely mentions hockey at all anyway.
It’s best not to get worked up too much about these kinds of things.
I feel like This is a challenge in hockey where Seattle, despite having a really strong fan base, will never be able to complete with the big market of original six teams and the teams that play them.
We know we’re better than they are, but the media will never realize that because of $$$$.
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National Media doesn’t talk about any Seattle sports team unless they are truly top top tier. l
They tend not to care about pacific division teams as a whole, except maybe the Oilers, and its been that way for at least the last 2 decades
National media doesn’t really have great coverage of the Kraken — I would also argue that most hockey content creators have dismissed the Kraken heavily at this point too
We have to earn it, and we haven’t yet. We’ve been an overall mediocre team with mediocre results. The fact that we are 3rd in the Pacific right now should change that, but the Pacific as a whole has been pretty bad this year
We don’t have the young exciting pieces that teams like the Ducks, Sharks, or Blackhawks do — we have very good pieces, but they are almost all high floor/medium ceiling guys like Matty
The team has established an identity this season, and that should serve us well as we move forward into the next couple seasons, but that identity is also pretty boring; basically building a team and system similar to the Kings. I’m not expecting coverage to get better any time soon
The only thing that will change that is winning — national coverage started paying better attention to the Mariners this year because they were winning. If we can build a consistent winning culture, coverage will change
The power rankings are written by AI these days and it shows.
Why would national media care about us? We’ve had 1 good season.
They definitely don’t cover the Kraken as much as I would like, but in this specific case, they’re also correct.
Praise has to be earned not given and I say this as someone who’s supported the team from the get. They called out Murray in that which sure that’s fun, he’s been around the block and is a recognizable name but legit and honestly what else are they going to put in there as a green flag? Teams dont get “who’s a good boy” praise just for getting some wins, you’re supposed to win. I think their callout as the red flag is exactly why they’re brushed off
“No team gets out-chanced more than the Kraken and that’s the reddest of all red flags on the list.”
Media wants to cover the teams doing the out-chancing not the teams getting out-chanced regardless of whether they have a winning record. Combine that with a lack of flashiness, no real star power and it is what it is. I also don’t think this is at all an east coast/west coast thing in the least. The Blue Jackets exist and the only reason anyone ever hears about them is because they have some fun, legitimately good players coming up. Without them they’d be a ghost to the media.
I honestly don’t care. The US national media coverage of the NHL overall is garbage.
Couldn’t care less. The Hockey guy talks about us and that’s enough for me. If we lose Shannon then I’ll be heartbroken.
I would actually rather they not pay attention to us. It makes it way more fun when we win a game we’re “not supposed” to win.
Our ranking in ESPN’s power rankings is a joke
When you’re talking the Athletic you’re dealing with two problems… Dom being too far up his analytics ass to question them and an extreme east coast bias with regard to coverage and knowledge. The bias part is true for most of hockey media to be fair. It should be very telling to you that every commentary made about the Kraken by the Athletic fails to acknowledge we’ve been missing two of our best scoring wingers for most of the season. It’s also very telling they’re saying Matt Murray is back in an article updated today and he is very much not back
I don’t really care about the power rankings or the respect we get when pundits are doing their analyses. The thing that bothers me is just that we don’t have beat writers at those publications.
Some people in here are saying we need to earn it by being more exciting / better, but there are franchises with great writers who have been bad for a long time. Max Bultman does a great job covering the Red Wings. Matthew Fairburn has articles up all the time about the Sabres. I’m blanking on his name, but the athletic’s writer covering The Blue Jackets is great. The wild haven’t done anything and they have two writers. Ian Mendes was great while the Sens were bad etc etc. All those fan bases get great insight into their teams and personal interest stories about their players and they have had long stretches of irrelevance.
I’m just bummed we don’t get the same sort of thing. We don’t even get a mention on 32 thoughts most of the time.
Yeah, the bias for the Athletic’s preferred teams is pretty obvious. They’ve had several articles detailing how bad the STL Blues are, week after week, with little mention of teams that are exceeding expectations. The only time then Kraken are mentioned are either in a one paragraph one-off ‘article’, or in some type of list of all 32 teams.
It sucks, but I also understand. We’re basically the newest without any of the rule-bending pizzaz of Vegas, and without any major breakout stars.
You would think there would be some type of, “Whoa! This is Seattle’s best start to a season’ type story, but alas. Keep your heads down and enjoy those squid points (even if alot of them are OT pts).
East coast bias and the fact that the Kraken didnt do what Vegas has done. I don’t mind as it is fun to see fans from other fan bases get upset when their team loses to the Kraken thinking they are the same team as last year.
It’s really funny to me that it’s basically a right of passage to read the Athletic’s Power Rankings and feel slighted on behalf of your team. If a team is ranked anywhere from 2-32, you’ll find a fan in the comments complaining. There were so many fellow kraken fans in the comments this week. We’ve made it! We’re a real team!!
East coast bias is not malicious, but it is a thing. We’re not flashy, we’re not messy. Our organization doesn’t like to talk to insiders. You don’t really hear news leak from us.
We have good local independent coverage, and that’s worth way more than national coverage will ever be.
The national media will rehash Crosby hopefully being traded to Colorado over and over again for two straight seasons rather than talk about any west coast teams.
East coast sportswriters admit they don’t watch west coast games. It’s just the way it is.
Step 1. Ignore mass media. Their number one goal is to raise money, not actually report news. How do they maximize profits, you ask? By generating clickbait for the biggest markets and selling ad space. It doesn’t even have to be relevant, it just has to have a catchy headline.
Step 2… hell idk. Pretty much all you actually need is step 1 IMO. Just enjoy the game. Join a local fan page or subreddit. Appreciate that we have some of the best local TV broadcasters in the entire NHL. Celebrate when we win. Lament when we lose. Be the fan that our team deserves.
Hockey is a weird sport. Every one of those guys out there works 1000% harder than 99% of the population and we all sit on our couches and have the nerve to bitch about another year not competing to win it all. Appreciate what they do. Enjoy the sport for what it is. Know that it takes a metric ton of hard work and no shortage of plain old luck to get Lord Stanley’s Cup. Support for your team is important. Lastly… Enjoy it however you want to, but please for the love of the heavens above do not let this become a toxic fan base like Vancouver or some others.
National media tends to overlook mediocre teams with no interesting personalities.
Welcome to Seattle sports. There’s a reason they call us southern Alaska. The east coast bias is a thing for a reason.
I love hockey psychology on YouTube but every ‘NHL this week’ I feel like we barely get a mention at all. I might be being sensitive though…
Are you new to Seattle sports? The national media doesn’t really notice us until we’re in the playoffs regardless of what sport it is. The Seahawks had an extended honeymoon in the Pete Carroll era but that was an outlier.