Kaapo Kakko, 25, also had a strong season on the wing once returning from a broken hand that sidelined him six weeks right out of training camp. He put up 40 points in just 65 games \u2013 the highest point-per-game total of his career.<\/p>\n
Among more inexperienced youth, the season-long presence of center Berkly Catton, who turned 20 in January, provided invaluable experience the team hopes will translate into greater production moving forward. Fourth line winger Jacob Melanson, 22, promoted mid-season, also made a huge impression in his energetic tenacity and ability to jumpstart the team.<\/p>\n
Ryan Winterton, 22, got into 68 games and seemed to continuously improve in sticking with the team all season, aside from taking time off to deal with the death of his brother from cancer.<\/p>\n
Danish forward prospect Oscar Fisker Molgaard, 21, logged two assists in a surprising 13 games seemingly ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n
But not all went well with younger players. Kraken forward Shane Wright, 22, saw his point totals decline in his second full season while defenseman Ryker Evans, 24, was inconsistent throughout. Jani Nyman broke camp with the team at age 21 but also struggled with consistency in separate NHL stints spanning 28 games.<\/p>\n
And forward Tye Kartye, 24, a mainstay since joining the squad in the playoffs three years ago, was put on waivers and claimed by the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n
Some struggles by younger players mirrored those of the broader team down the stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one is unaware of what the last 20-something games was,\u201d Beniers said. \u201cObviously, no one was happy with that at all. But I think that getting ourselves to that situation, putting ourselves in that situation, and failing, now we get another year to put ourselves in that situation and go at it again hopefully. And learn from it and get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have older guys and we have a lot of young guys. And that\u2019s probably the first time those guys have been in that situation later in the year, and that type of hockey where it does get harder. It gets tighter. So, we\u2019re going to learn from it and we\u2019re going to be better next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kraken forward Jared McCann, who again reached the 20-goal mark in a season limited to just 52 games by nagging lower body injuries, said \u201cdisappointment\u201d best sums up how the entire organization feels. McCann said he\u2019s tried to be \u201ca shoulder to lean on\u201d for younger players joining the team, some of whom struggled with the heightened pace of their first playoff stretch run.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question about the mutual parting of ways last week between the team and president Ron Francis, McCann was blunt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the younger guys need to take it more seriously when it comes to…\u201d he said, pausing to find the right words before adding: \u201cThings change if you don\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaapo Kakko, 25, also had a strong season on the wing once returning from a broken hand that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-555305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}