As the calendar turns to 2025, now is a good time to take stock of the Seattle Kraken’s 2024-25 season and to come up with several resolutions for the New Year. The first column of the year conveniently comes just before the halfway point of the campaign, giving us a decent sample size with which to work.
In a season during which the Kraken got off to a 4-2-0 start, their playoff dreams have likely been derailed before Game 42 has even been played. They followed up their strong start by suffering through four losing streaks consisting of three games or more and winning only 13 of their next 34 games.
At the time of this writing, the Kraken own a record of 17-20-3 and carry a .463 points percentage (PTS%). Seattle sits 14 points behind the Edmonton Oilers for third in the Pacific Division and seven points behind the Vancouver Canucks (who have two games in hand) for the Western Conference’s second and final wildcard place.
Considering that most of the major outlets currently project the Kraken as having less than a 10% chance of qualifying for the 2025 NHL Playoffs, drastic changes are needed one way or another.
Let’s dive into four resolutions that the organization can make for 2025 in order to succeed this season and beyond. The first two resolutions are geared towards ensuring short-term success, while the last two are more aimed at laying a foundation for winning a Stanley Cup this decade.
Resolution No. 1: Give Joey Daccord More Starts
As with any good resolution, the first one is simple to implement. Head coach Dave Bylsma has taken a tandem approach to his goaltending decisions so far in his tenure, with Daccord earning 23 of the starts to the 17 he’s handed to Grubauer.
One can understand Bylsma wanting to appear impartial at the beginning of his reign and taking a clean-slate approach, but the difference in their results over the past few seasons speaks for itself.
Related: Seattle Kraken Getting Good Goaltending To End 2024
Daccord has won 33 of his 77 starts since joining the Kraken, while Grubauer has won 54 of his 141. Since the start of the 2021-22 (Seattle’s first season), Daccord is a top 25 goalie by save percentage (.910), goals-against average (2.62), and goals saved above expected (plus-22.8), while Grubauer sits comfortably in the bottom half of all qualified goalies (minimum 20 games played) by each metric.
The trend has once again played itself out this season, yet Bylsma’s affinity for a 50-50 split and Daccord’s recent injury has resulted in a more even share of starts. A team with playoff aspirations should probably play a borderline All-Star-level goalie over one with near league-worst results over his Kraken tenure.
Resolution No. 2: Stop Losing to Beatable Opposition
If the Kraken had hoped to make the playoffs this season, the way in which they have dropped points to beatable opposition has dented those dreams significantly.
Of their 23 regulation and overtime losses, five have come against teams either tied or behind them in points, including the draft lottery-bound San Jose Sharks (twice), Anaheim Ducks (once), and the Chicago Blackhawks (once). All of those losses came in regulation, so the Kraken dropped 10 valuable points against teams who knew they were going to and hoped to be, in the running for the first-overall pick coming into the season.
No NHL team has ever gone undefeated over the course of an entire campaign, but those losses currently mean the difference between a second-ever playoff appearance and hoping that the lottery balls fall your way come the spring. Easier said than done, but that’s what makes it the ideal New Year’s resolution.
Resolution No. 3: Re-Energize Matty Beniers’ Career
This resolution applies both for the short- and the long-term future of the franchise. Beniers was selected second overall in the 2021 NHL Draft and submitted an impressive Calder Trophy-winning 24-goal, 57-point rookie season in 2022-23. It seemed like the sky was the limit for the American pivot, but he’s yet to hit those heights again in the years since.
The 2023-24 season saw his totals dip to 15 goals and 37 points in 77 games, and his stat line displays an underwhelming seven goals and 22 points in 40 games this season. Beniers may have benefitted from an unsustainable shooting streak, as he had a 16.2% conversion rate during his debut season and is only at 9.6% this season. His individual shot and chance generation numbers have improved over last season, but the goals just haven’t arrived.
It’s difficult to say that Beniers has suffered from unfavorable usage and deployment, as his most common linemates at five-on-five have been Jared McCann (40 goals in 2022-23) and defenseman Brandon Montour (73 points in 2022-23). The 22-year-old is even seeing a career-high of 2:37 minutes per game on the power play. His on-ice shooting percentage (individual+linemate shooting percentage) with the man advantage is a miserable 4.9%, suggesting he is due for positive regression, considering his previous career low in that department was 14.5%.
Not every draft class can, by definition, be above average, so it’s entirely possible that the Kraken won a top-three pick in an underwhelming year that was already scrambled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The second-overall pick in 2020 was Quinton Byfield, while the second-overall pick in 2022 was Simon Nemec. It’s early to make a claim about the overall quality of these draft classes, but early returns suggest the top-five picks from the past few seasons are a mixed bag.
Resolution No. 4: Pick a Direction for the Franchise
The final resolution will have the greatest ramifications on the Kraken’s short- and long-term competitive timeline. If general manager Ron Francis trades players on expiring deals ahead of the deadline, that could see one or more of Yanni Gourde (age 33), Brandon Tanev (33), and Daniel Sprong (27) leave town. Jaden Schwartz (32), captain Jordan Eberle (34), and Jamie Oleksiak (32) also have contracts that expire in 2026, so a complete overhaul could conceivably take place ahead of schedule.
While the Kraken would be loaded with draft picks and add to their already strong prospect pool, that would immediately put their playoff dreams on hold for at least two seasons. If the team owners, players, and fanbase could stomach a few more years of losing while accumulating draft capital, Seattle could quickly reverse course out of this current predicament of being too good to truly bottom out but not good enough to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
It’s easy for me to say that the Kraken should wave the white flag on the current iteration of the core when it’s not my money or contract on the line, but the prosperity of the franchise going forward would improve tenfold.
2025 Represents Fork in the Path for the Kraken
Though the Kraken’s road to the playoffs looks bleak, all hope is not lost. Half of the season remains to make up ground in the race and earn the second postseason appearance in franchise history. The organization must decide whether this path is worth pursuing compared to selling off veterans on expiring contracts at the trade deadline and looking to be legitimately competitive in the latter half of the 2020s.
It’s a choice that is not without its potentially negative consequences, but the positives will likely outweigh the drawbacks in the long run. The question remains: do the franchise’s decision-makers see it the same way?
Data courtesy of Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, and the NHL.
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