The Seattle Kraken are undergoing significant changes for the second straight year.
After being named the franchise’s second head coach last May, Dan Bylsma was let go by the team less than a full year later Monday. The Kraken also made another interesting move Tuesday, promoting general manager Ron Francis team president and assistant GM Jason Botterill to Francis’ former role.
Seattle Kraken fire coach Dan Bylsma, make change at GM
The changes come following a disappointing fourth season for the franchise. The Kraken went just 35-41-6, finished 20 points out of the playoff picture and missed the postseason for the second year in a row.
“I was expecting improvement,” Kraken play-by-play voice John Forslund said during a conversation with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday. “… This is the best roster they’ve had in the four years. I thought they’d be closer to a playoff spot than 20 points out. I thought they’d be in the playoffs myself, and they’re not. So I thought the step we keep talking about as a franchise would have happened this past year, and it didn’t.”
Signs of regression for Seattle Kraken
Forslund thought Bylsma, who won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 2009, would get more time than just one year leading the Kraken. But he also saw some troubling signs from the team.
After finishing 24th in goals allowed per game in their inaugural season, the Kraken improved defensively in each season under former head coach Dave Hakstol. They were 15th in goals allowed during their run to the playoffs 2022-23 and ninth during the 2023-24 season. But Seattle dropped back down to 24th this season.
Bylsma’s short reign did see an uptick offensively, as the Kraken jumped from 29th last season to 16th this season in goals per game. But the team still struggled on special teams, finishing 22nd in power-play scoring percentage and 23rd in penalty-kill percentage.
“When you look at what they did under Hakstol for three years, one thing you could say is they were very good defensively, and that’s with sporadic goaltending (that was) sometimes good, sometimes not so good,” Forslund said. “They were still defensively, as a team, pretty locked tight. That went away. They scored more, (were) a little bit more exciting to watch, but I thought they sacrificed defensively. Special teams, not very good. So for all those reasons, you could see a coaching change maybe coming.”
The Kraken did show a little life down the stretch with a 9-8-2 record over their final 19 games, but Forslund doesn’t feel that was enough to buy into moving forward.
“That doesn’t matter after the trading deadline, especially if you’re long gone,” he said. “There’s three levels of teams. The teams that are in trying to get there and be healthy and they’re not really emotionally invested in what they’re doing, the teams that are desperate and trying to make the playoffs and then the teams that are out of it like the Kraken we’re. So I don’t know how you evaluate how they played other than to say it was good for the fans.
“And even if you take the last 19 games and work those numbers, they still don’t come up to speed. I had them at an 85-point pace if they did what they did in the last 20 games. So it’s below the bar.”
What to make of Francis move
Forslund called the decision to move Francis up to team president as one that “came out of left field.” However, it’s a move that makes the Kraken’s front office align similar to what many other teams are doing in the NHL.
Forslund pointed just north to the Vancouver Canucks. Jim Rutherford, who won three Stanley Cups as a general manager, was hired to be the team’s GM and president of hockey operations in December 2021, but relinquished his GM duties a month later.
Francis served under Rutherford as the Carolina Hurricanes’ director of hockey operations for three seasons before replacing him as the team’s general manager in 2014.
“You bring in a general manager who’s got boots on the ground, who can work the phones, who can be totally focused on just doing that,” Forslund said. “Meanwhile, there’s a communication layer between hockey operations and ownership, and really what ends up happening is Jason Botterill, under this dynamic, will report to Ron, Ron will oversee everything and give his opinion.
“I am assuming that Jason will be the action guy. He’ll make things happen. He’ll make the trades. He’ll govern the scouting staff,” Forslund continued. “Ron put everybody in place. So he’s kind of the overseer of this. And then as you get to the next level – and every team in every sport has the answer to ownership – you need that individual that’s going to kind of be that gap breaker or the ambassador to the next level up. So I think that’s what they’re striving for here.”
Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
AP Predictions: Who will win top NHL awards for 2024-25 season?
