The Seattle Kraken enter the NHL’s Olympic break with six wins in their last 10 games but, more importantly, occupy a playoff spot in a crowded Western Conference (eight teams have between 58 and 68 points). The team is on track to clinch the second postseason berth in franchise history, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from seeking out reinforcements.
In my last column, I argued against the Kraken trading Shane Wright, but what if they did? Recent reports indicated that the front office was shopping Shane Wright in order to add a legitimate top-six winger to massage their scoring woes. Seattle ranks in the bottom 10 leaguewide in goals per game, a trend that has persisted for years (26th since 2021-22).
The team could hypothetically afford to do so with Matty Beniers, Chandler Stephenson, and potentially Berkly Catton (unsure where he ultimately slots in at the NHL level) down the middle.
Wright just turned 22 in January, is a right-handed center, which is a precious commodity, has draft pedigree (picked fourth-overall in 2022), and only counts for $0.886 million against the cap through next season, at which point he becomes a restricted free agent (RFA). He’s struggled to find ice time and produce this season (20 points in 55 games this year), but he already has over 200 games of professional experience under his belt. He is actually outperforming his underlying numbers from last season’s 44-point campaign.
The NHL’s pre-Olympics roster freeze came and went on Feb. 4 without Wright moving elsewhere, though the New York Rangers – a potential suitor for the young center – traded star winger Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings. The Russian forward would waive his no-trade clause only if a potential deal included a contract extension (he was set to become a free agent this summer), which would drastically limit the pool of interested parties willing to do business with New York. The Kraken reportedly offered Panarin a four-year extension worth in excess of $14 million per season, but he decided to choose location over the bigger payday.
Any other potential trade partner is likely to either be in a position to sell a good forward (i.e., already on track to miss the playoffs), need an injection of young talent (i.e., possess an older roster), or need to shed salary for upcoming extensions, or some combination of all three.
Those parameters narrow down the field considerably. Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Winnipeg Jets have a dire need for another current or future top-six caliber center with the gradual decline of veteran pivots in John Tavares (Toronto), Jonathan Toews, and Adam Lowry (Winnipeg), but lack the assets the Kraken would desire in return.
Instead, let’s dive into three of the more likely destinations for Wright and how each move could help the Kraken this season and beyond.
San Jose Sharks
Let’s start with the least appealing of the likely suitors. While the Sharks already have one of the league’s best prospect pools, there’s no such thing as too much young talent. Macklin Celebrini and Michael Misa are pegged as their top-six centers of the future, but there are some doubts about whether the latter is better suited to the wing at the NHL level. Even if Wright is shifted to the wing, San Jose would be adding a player with high potential to their forward group.
San Jose has picks to offer (both their own first-round pick and that of the Edmonton Oilers this summer) as well as veteran winger Tyler Toffoli, who is carrying a cap hit of $6 million per year through the 2027-28 season. He’s on pace for over 20 goals and 50 points, and scored 30 goals just a season ago. He’d immediately become one of Seattle’s best chance finishers, even factoring in some age-related regression.
Toffoli’s deal will still be on the books in the summer of 2027 when all three of Celebrini, Will Smith, and Yaroslav Askarov need new contracts. Other expensive contracts (Logan Couture – $8 million; Carey Price – $10.5 million; Dmitry Orlov – $6.5 million) will have expired by then, and the salary cap is projected to exceed $110 million at that point, but some maneuvering will be required.
Celebrini could win the Hart Trophy in his sophomore season, and both Smith and Askarov are considered among the brightest up-and-comers at their respective positions. They are going to command a good chunk of the $93 million in cap space currently projected to be available to the Sharks that summer, and that’s without mentioning any of their other star prospects who will need new contracts the following summer (Misa and Sam Dickinson).
If the Sharks have any foresight, they will trade Toffoli while he still has value, rather than as a 36-year-old who may require valuable picks to clear space (see the Maple Leafs and Patrick Marleau in 2019). If they value making the playoffs earlier than planned in Celebrini’s career, keeping a productive forward with leadership value off of the ice to their young core should be the play.
Vancouver Canucks
The second team that could be wrangled into a deal for Wright is the Vancouver Canucks, who are dead last in the NHL by a wide margin. The Canucks boast three forwards aged 30 or younger who could be traded in an effort to expedite their rebuild in Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser. They already traded franchise defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild earlier this season, so moving off of older and less valuable players shouldn’t be as painful.
The main hurdle to a trade with the Canucks is that the two teams are direct divisional and geographic rivals in the Pacific Northwest. Neither organization wants to help the other improve, but sometimes a deal between two hostile parties makes the most sense.
Boeser carries a $7.25 million cap hit through the 2031-32 season, at which point he will be 35. He has six 20-goal campaigns under his belt (he had 40 goals in 2023-24), but has faced injury troubles for most of his career. Such a lengthy commitment would give Seattle pause, given concerns around Boeser’s long-term health, but he would be one of the Kraken’s best wingers when healthy.
Pettersson is a more complicated case. He’s more of a center than a winger (but can play both), owns one of the highest cap hits in the league at $11.6 million per season through 2032, and has seen his production plummet since seasons of 102 and 89 points in 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively. That output as an under-25 player put him on track to be league MVP one day, but that hasn’t come to fruition. He’s posted only 79 points over his last 113 games, has faced criticism for his dedication, and was embroiled in a rumored feud with former teammate J.T. Miller, which contributed to the Canucks’ downfall over the past few seasons and to Pettersson’s reduced output.
Pettersson could use a fresh start in a place that badly needs more skilled talent, and the Canucks would gladly take Wright and make him one of their key pieces in the future in their rebuild. The massive cap hit is a significant worry given how much longer the contract runs and the fear that Pettersson never reaches his previous heights again. Still, the Kraken could send bad contracts to Vancouver to clear room and should be taking risks on diminished assets like the four-time All-Star.
Nashville Predators
The Nashville Predators are only a couple of points back of the West’s two wildcard spots. Still, their recent commitments to expensive free agents and a past-their-prime core have positioned them as a prime candidate for a retool, if not an outright teardown. Eight of their 10 highest-paid players are over 30, and the team ranks 26th in points percentage over the past three seasons.
It was announced earlier this week that Barry Trotz is retiring as general manager at the end of the season, but will steer the team through at least the upcoming trade deadline. How far the organization is willing to go remains to be seen, but Steven Stamkos and Filip Forsberg are two forwards whom the Kraken could target in a trade. A clear obstacle is that both players have no-move clauses, which would require their permission to break, and the veterans are likely to prefer moving to a more established contender.
Stamkos is scoring at a 41-goal pace and has already eclipsed the 27 goals he scored all of last season in his first year in Nashville. That output is appealing to the Kraken, but at 36 years old, the Kraken would not get very many good years out of him. His contract is $8 million per year through 2027-28, so retaining a portion of his cap hit would make that number slightly more palatable, but concerns about his age and remaining contract length remain.
On the other hand, Forsberg is the most attractive trade chip the Predators can dangle in trade discussions. He’s a five-time 30-goal scorer, has eclipsed 40 goals twice in his career, and sits in the top 20 leaguewide over the past three seasons. If that wasn’t appealing enough, the 31-year-old Swedish winger is still under contract for four more seasons beyond this one at a meager $8.5 million annual cap hit in a rapidly rising cap environment. If he were to become available, a majority of the league would be interested in securing his services.
Given the term remaining on Forsberg’s deal, the Kraken would have to offer a monumental package centered around Wright, at least two of their four first-round picks in 2026 and 2027, and likely one other decent prospect. It would be a steep price, but Forsberg would be the most talented player in Kraken franchise history. That’s got to be worth something.
Kraken Have Much to Ponder over Olympic Break
While I agree that any player has a price (yes, even Connor McDavid), the Kraken should be looking towards the future rather than auctioning off Wright for a win-now move. A blossoming farm system is slowly bearing fruit, and the Kraken already have eight picks over the first two rounds of the 2026 and 2027 NHL Drafts.
Unless the player coming back in a Wright trade is on the right side of 30 and immediately becomes one of Seattle’s top three forwards, I think the team would be better off nurturing the young center’s development.
The executives and the fanbase are both understandably starved for success, but doubling down on a mediocre and aging core (Dunn, Montour, Larsson, McCann, Oleksiak, Grubauer, Daccord, Eberle, Schwarz, and Stephenson are all 29 or older) is the wrong move with the promise of Seattle’s pipeline shimmering in the distance.
Data courtesy of the NHL.
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