Seattle Kraken trade of Burakovsky 'incredible'

The Seattle Kraken are not wasting time this offseason, their first under new general manager Jason Botterill.

In the last week, the Kraken traded for physical 6-foot-5 forward Mason Marchment, locked up defenseman Cale Fleury on a two-year extension, and shipped veteran forward Andre Burakovsky to the Chicago Blackhawks for 25-year-old center Joe Veleno.

Salk: Why Kraken trade for Marchment is step in right direction

That last move elicited an interesting response from senior NHL writer Greg Wyshynski of ESPN.

“The Burakovsky thing is incredible,” Wyshynski said Monday to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “It’s an incredible piece of business for Botterill to offload a player like that who clearly wasn’t a good fit and clearly couldn’t stay healthy, wasn’t really useful for the franchise.”

More: Kraken trade veteran forward Burakovsky to Blackhawks

The 30-year-old Burakovsky signed with the Kraken on a five-year, $25.7 million contract in July 2022 after winning the Stanley Cup with both Washington (2018) and Colorado (2022). Though the Kraken added Burakovsky ahead of their one playoff season in 2022-23, he played just 49 games and had a career-low plus/minus of minus-9.

And things kept going the wrong direction. Burakovsky played just 49 games again in 2023-24, a year Seattle went backwards, and his plus/minus was even worse (minus-15) as he mustered just 16 points. And while he was healthy enough to play 79 games in 2024-25, he had just 37 points and was a minus-3 as the Kraken finished under .500 and missed the postseason for a second straight year.

Wyshynski seems intrigued by the direction Botterill is taking the Kraken, especially with the trade of Burakovsky for a usable piece in Veleno.

“To get anyone to take him off their hands without having to sweeten the pot is really impressive,” Wyshynski said. “They found a taker in Chicago, which is obviously desperate for anybody who can help out Connor Bedard there offensively. So (it’s a) good start (to the offseason). We’ll see where it goes, but a promising one for the Kraken.”

Botterill was promoted from assistant general manager to the GM job in April, with former Kraken GM Ron Francis moving to president of hockey operations at the same time, and there appears to a be a theme to his moves thus far.

“I think this is going to be Jason Botterill’s modus operandi is to make this team tougher to play against, give it a little bit of identity,” Wyshynski said.

That also extends to the choice of head coach, Lane Lambert, who was hired late last month to replace Dan Bylsma, who lasted just one season in Seattle.

“I don’t think you bring in Lane Lambert to have him coach a team of Andre Burakovskys. So I think it is sorta of a piece of the direction the team wants to go more in,” Wyshynski continued.

Asked what could be the next move for the Kraken, Wyshynski mentioned something that’s worked out for the back-to-back champion Florida Panthers.

“Are the Kraken in a place where they need to start kind of taking a chance on these guys that are in their early-to-mid 20s that maybe haven’t actualized in places, and then you hope that you hit on a couple of those guys? I mean, that’s (a) lesson from the Florida Panthers: you take a guy like Sam Bennett and you say to yourself, well, how did they end up with this guy? Well, it’s because he was drafted extremely high by the Calgary Flames and then never really hit his marks commensurate to that draft position. So they pounce on it. They’re like, we love this guy. They bring him in and all of a sudden, yeah, he’s not a dominant regular season player, but the man just won the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP.

“So if I’m the Kraken, I kind of start looking around the league at maybe some of the younger players that maybe haven’t hit their marks yet, maybe their teams are looking to make a change rather than give these guys long-term contracts, and see if you can find maybe one or two of those guys.”

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with ESPN NHL insider Greg Wyshynski in the video at the top of this post, or the audio player at this link or in the player below. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

Seattle Kraken trade of Burakovsky ‘incredible’

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