Kraken general manager Jason Botterill said Wednesday he was very disappointed in not making the playoffs and promised to be \u201cvery aggressive\u201d in fixing that this summer.<\/p>\n
Botterill was making his first comments since the departure of team president Ron Francis two weeks ago, calling his outgoing colleague a mentor and sounding board for ideas. But Botterill, at a morning news conference at Kraken Community Iceplex, also insisted he had \u201cfinal say\u201d on all decisions and is holding himself accountable for bettering the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cBottom line is, we are not where we want to be after five years,\u201d Botterill told the assembled media members and others watching via a livestream feed on the team\u2019s website and mobile application. \u201cIt\u2019s an important time for our franchise. We have a strong foundation here, but changes need to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Botterill said it was made clear by the team a year ago, when he was promoted to GM, that he was in charge of personnel moves and brought in players and coaches to help accomplish that. Now, along with head coach Lane Lambert, he\u2019s evaluating the work done by assistant coaches and players in order to better determine off-season moves to be made from here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will focus on players that can help and help our team play to Lane\u2019s standard,\u201d Botterill said. \u201cA team that plays with speed, that attacks and competes every night. We’ll look at the free agent market, but that can’t be our only avenue. We’ll evaluate trades. And we’ll find creative ways to continue to develop our young players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Botterill added that he didn\u2019t know Lambert all that well other than what he saw during last year\u2019s interview process. But watching him last season, he was impressed by what he saw \u2013 namely that he \u201ccame as advertised\u201d in his coaching approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was direct with our players, he was intense,\u201d Botterill said. \u201cHe was accountable. And I think our players appreciated that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke, seated next to Botterill at the news conference, said a team \u201caudit\u201d of hockey operations has already begun at the ownership level and will continue shortly by bringing in one of \u201ca couple of firms\u201d from the outside to work alongside Botterill in pinpointing areas of need. The final report will be submitted to majority Kraken owner Samantha Holloway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really cool thing that the owner and our hockey organization wants to lay fresh eyes on this,\u201d Leiweke said. \u201cNot only to validate what we think. But also, to potentially uncover things that might be sources of opportunity to fix. But also, sources of strength that we haven\u2019t fully accounted for.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to a question about whether the team is prepared to take \u201ca step back\u201d or undergo \u201ca transition year\u201d if the audit suggests it, Leiweke said the goal remains and has always been long term success. That said, he added that he, Holloway and the executive team plan to put \u201cthe adversity\u201d of the late season collapse to good use by learning from it and making key improvements.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the pieces are in place,\u201d Leiweke said. \u201cI think our ownership feels that we’ve got to add to those pieces. We’ve got critical pieces in place. We’ve got to add and push this to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Botterill said he\u2019s already spoken to players through exit interviews last week about what went wrong the final month-plus stretch drive. And about some of the things that went right under Lambert compared to the prior two years that led to dismissals of coaches Dan Bylsma and Dave Hakstol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this year was different,\u201d Botterill said. \u201cThe excitement element was that we were part of a playoff race\u2026we were in a battle for playoff games. And I think that was a huge advantage for a player like Berkly Catton, Ryker Evans, Shane Wright to experience that. So, a little different from the previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n
But still not enough. Especially after a very strong January, in which the team went 10-5-2 in a league record 17 games over a one-month span, positioned them in third place with a shot at top spot in the Pacific Division.<\/p>\n
Botterill said he\u2019ll target improvement to the makeup of the Kraken forwards group, which is currently a mix of older veterans and very young players with few in-between. Also, he\u2019ll look to better special teams, particularly a power play unit that went from strength to liability down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The GM was asked about comments last week by forward Jared McCann, who suggested the team\u2019s younger players didn\u2019t always seem aware of the consequences of missing the playoffs. Other players echoed his sentiments, suggested the team\u2019s locker room culture was quiet and that younger players were still learning about the intensity level required in a playoff race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kraken general manager Jason Botterill said Wednesday he was very disappointed in not making the playoffs and promised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-558293","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":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116450859701170698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558293","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=558293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}