It seems like just yesterday that the Stanley Cup was awarded to the Florida Panthers for the second year running, and yet, the start of the 2025-26 NHL season is just around the corner. The Seattle Kraken open their new campaign on Thursday, October 9th, at home to the Anaheim Ducks, and will look to start strong after a tumultuous summer.
The most significant development was Dan Bylsma’s firing after only one season as the team’s head coach, with Lane Lambert being lured away from the Toronto Maple Leafs to become Seattle’s third head coach in franchise history.
In the executive suite, former general manager Ron Francis moved upstairs into the President of Hockey Operations role while assistant general manager Jason Botterill took over Francis’s old gig.
Botterill made a splash by snagging the hulking Mason Marchment from the Dallas Stars in a trade to relieve the Texas club’s cap burden. He brings a massive frame along with the 22 goals and 47 points he scored in 62 games last season.
Defensive defenseman Ryan Lindgren was signed to a four-year, $18 million deal from the Colorado Avalanche, while two-time Stanley Cup champion Matt Murray signed a one-year deal to battle Philipp Grubauer to be Seattle’s backup goaltender. Bottom-six center Frederik Gaudreau was also brought into the fold.
Fringe forward Mikey Eyssimont left in free agency (Boston Bruins) while bottom-six center Joe Veleno had his contract bought out after being acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks for Andre Burakovsky.
Restricted free agents Tye Kartye, Kappo Kaako, and Ryker Evans were all re-signed as part of the team’s nucleus. The latter two players are currently out for at least a month with injuries.
The Kraken will count on internal reinforcements by way of the promotion of top prospects such as Jani Nyman, Ryan Winterton, and Berkly Catton, all of whom have made the season-opening roster.
It’s against that backdrop that the Kraken enter their fifth season of existence, with only one playoff appearance to their name. Can they break that growing trend of futility? Let’s dive into that and four other predictions for the 2025-26 season. For reference, here are my three predictions from last season.
Prediction 1: Kraken Miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs … Again
They remain comfortably behind the six Western Conference teams that finished in the top three of their respective divisions in the Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights, Los Angeles Kings, and the Edmonton Oilers.
The three teams that finished behind them in the West last season (Nashville Predators, Chicago Blackhawks, and the San Jose Sharks) shouldn’t be as bad as last year, despite heading for another year in the basement. This leaves seven teams (including the Kraken) vying for two wildcard spots, with three (Minnesota Wild, Utah Mammoth, and Anaheim Ducks) improving, and the other three not getting much worse, at the very least.
The Athletic’s 2025-26 Kraken season preview gives Seattle the 29th-best odds of making the playoffs (16%) and a projected standings points tally of 76 (29th overall). It took 96 points to make the playoffs in the West last season. Even with some of the young players joining the fray, making a 20-point leap doesn’t seem likely while also considering the impact of missing Kakko and Evans for nearly two months each.
Prediction 2: Eberle, Oleksiak, and Schwartz Traded at the Deadline
This prediction aligns with the first. If the Kraken fail to make the playoffs, they will likely be on the outside looking in come the trade deadline (Mar. 6) and be more inclined to trade off expiring assets. This includes team captain Jordan Eberle (35 years old), defenseman Jamie Oleksiak (33 in December), and Jaden Schwartz (33). All three are on the downswing of their careers, will become unrestricted free agents next summer, but could still be of some use to contending teams.
Schwartz led the team with 26 goals last year. Eberle has been a consistent 20-goal threat for his career. Oleksiak is a 6-foot-7 defensive defenseman who opposing executives will be salivating to add to shore up their blue lines and penalty kills.
The Kraken remain several years away from legitimate Stanley Cup contention, at which point the aforementioned players will be approaching retirement if they haven’t done so already. They have one of the league’s better prospect pools and can add a number of quality assets by moving towards a long-overdue youth movement.
While Shane Wright, Berkly Catton, and Jake O’Brien are good prospects, they aren’t projected to be the elite of the elite. Accumulating as many lottery tickets as possible by way of the draft while simultaneously weakening the team to end the year is the best path towards getting that kind of talent. The 2026 NHL Draft class is headlined by the likes of Gavin McKenna, Keaton Verhoeff, and Ryan Roobroeck, three players who would immediately become the best prospects in Seattle’s system.
Francis traded away Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde, who were in the same position last season. He earned full marks for the return he garnered in the deal, and there’s no reason to believe the same can’t be accomplished with the remaining trio of aging veterans.
Prediction 3: Shane Wright Breaks Out Offensively In Sophomore Season
Let’s turn to some positives. Though Wright enjoyed an eight-game stint with the Kraken in both 2022-23 and 2023-24, the 2024-25 season represented his true rookie season in the NHL. I predicted that he would hit 25 goals and 50 points after scoring 26 goals and 60 points in 61 combined regular-season and playoff games for the Coachella Valley Firebirds the season prior. He fell just short with only 19 goals and 44 points in 79 games, but the signs of a player making good on his draft pedigree (fourth overall in 2022) were there.
From Jan. 1 onward, Wright ranked fourth on the Kraken in goals (12 in 44 games), sixth in assists (16), tied for second in points (28), and tied for the lead in even-strength production (21 points). The 21-year-old center only played an average of 14:44 minutes per game over that span, 14th among the team’s skaters and ninth among the forwards.
Those numbers represent a 22-goal and 52-point pace over 82 games. If an increase in ice time and further development is factored in, Wright could score 30 goals and 60 points this season while staking a permanent claim to a top-six role if his defensive results improve.
Prediction 4: Jani Nyman Is a Calder Trophy Finalist
The Kraken have historically struggled to score since joining the league, ranking 25th in goals-per-game since the start of the 2021-22 season. That lack of offensive output is set to be spotlighted once more with playmaking winger Kaapo Kakko out for six weeks with a broken hand. The untimely injury opens up a spot in the top-nine forward group, with 21-year-old Finnish forward Jani Nyman one of the leading candidates to get his big break and challenge for Calder, the NHL’s annual rookie-of-the-year award.
After pacing the Firebirds with 28 goals in 58 games in the American Hockey League last season, Nyman earned a call-up to the big club to end the year. He tallied three goals and six points in 12 appearances while averaging just under 14 minutes per game, ranking ninth among the team’s forwards during that late-season stint.
The 2022 second-round pick picked up where he left off, scoring a team-leading four goals and five points over the Kraken’s six preseason games this fall. Nyman will battle more established veterans in Mason Marchment and Eeli Tolvanen for ice time at both even strength and on the power play, but some factors are working in his favor.
There are ample openings in the lineup with no clear top dog, and Nyman is the kind of skilled big body (6-foot-4 and 220 pounds) that is in short supply around the league. He also boasts two full and productive seasons of professional experience in the Finnish league as an 18- and 19-year-old, so the transition to the more physical NHL shouldn’t be as difficult as it might be for others coming straight from junior.
It’s unrealistic to expect Nyman to beat out the likes of phenom Ivan Demidov (Montreal Canadiens), Zayne Parekh (Calgary Flames), and Jimmy Snuggerud (St. Louis Blues) for the Calder, but he has the talent, experience, and opportunity needed to force his way into the finalist conversation.
5 More Bold Kraken Predictions
With the more serious discussion out of the way, here are five more Kraken predictions which border on the bolder side:
- Joey Daccord is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy
- Wright, Catton, and Nyman all score 20 or more goals
- Kraken finish in the top half of the league in both goals for and against
- Matt Murray becomes a full-time backup to Philipp Grubauer
- Jessica Campbell becomes an NHL head coach elsewhere following the season
The Kraken should be a better team this season and could hand the keys to the kids before the year is up. The extent of the improvement remains to be seen, as does the direction the franchise decides to take.
Data courtesy of the NHL.
