Seattle Kraken Post-Trade Deadline 2024 NHL Playoff Outlook

With the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline firmly in the rearview, the league has turned its collective gaze towards each conference’s respective playoff race, with the postseason set to kick off in just over a month’s time.

The general outlook has not changed all that much for the Seattle Kraken since I last examined their playoff chances following the All-Star break. They have seen their odds of qualifying for the playoffs drop steadily over the past two months after winning 14 of their 29 games since the start of 2024 but only seven of 16 since the beginning of February.

In addition, the Kraken have gone 0-3-1 in four games since the deadline (March 8th), including a pair of losses in pivotal matchups against the Vegas Golden Knights and the Nashville Predators, which pushed them further to the outskirts of the playoff picture. 

As a result, they currently have a record of 28-26-12 (68 points) through 66 games and are 11 points behind the Vegas Golden Knights for the second and final wildcard spot in the West.

All is not lost with 16 games remaining on the schedule, but there is no doubt that time is running out for a Kraken squad hoping to qualify for the postseason for the second time in franchise history. Let’s dive into the wider Western Conference playoff picture and find out how likely the Kraken are to pull off the improbable.

Western Conference Wildcard Race Heating Up

To start, it’s important to present the Western Conference playoff picture as a whole, with teams shown with total points, the number of games remaining, and the difficulty of their remaining schedule (SOS) courtesy of Tankathon (1st is most difficult and 32nd is least difficult). First up is the race for the Central Division’s top three spots.

All three of the Winnipeg Jets, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Dallas Stars are even on 91 points, with the Jets holding both the regulation plus overtime wins (ROW) tiebreaker and games in hand on both of their closest adversaries.

Next is a look at the top of the Pacific, with the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers pulling away from the rest of the division. The Canucks have won 19 of 32 since January 1st, while the Oilers have won 22 of 31, with their corresponding .758 points percentage (PTS%) ranking first over that span.

Though 24 points separate the Kraken from the  Canucks at the top of the West, they are 11 points adrift of the Golden Knights in the second and final wildcard place. There is a slightly more manageable gap, but it is borderline insurmountable with how few games remain.

With the Oilers and Kings sitting 16 and 11 points ahead of the Kraken, respectively, the Pacific Division’s final two automatic playoff berths are all but locked up. Seattle does have one game in hand on the Kings, but the Oilers have a game in hand on the Kraken. 

The Kraken’s maximum point total is now 100, meaning that the Predators and Golden Knights need 18 and 21 points, respectively, from their remaining schedule, assuming Seattle wins all 16 of their remaining games.

Vegas hasn’t just created space between them and the Kraken but from the rest of the clubs in the wider wildcard chase. The Blues are currently the closest, but even they sit four points back and don’t have the games in hand needed to swiftly bridge the gap outside of direct head-to-head matchups.

The numbers aren’t on the Kraken’s side, to be sure, but they face a manageable schedule down the stretch, which offers them an outside shot at sneaking into the 2024 NHL Playoffs.

Kraken Have NHL’s Easiest Rest-of-Season Schedule

Though they sit on the outskirts of the playoff race, the Kraken face an extraordinarily favorable schedule for the rest of the regular season, ranking (32nd) according to Tankathon’s SOS metric, calculated as the average PTS% of each team’s remaining opponents.

Nine of their 16 remaining games are scheduled to come against the NHL’s ten worst teams in the overall standings by PTS%, with multiple matchups against the Anaheim Ducks (three), San Jose Sharks (two), and the Arizona Coyotes (two). Those are must-win games at this point and represent a massive opportunity to collect easy points toward a playoff berth that is moving further and further out of reach.

What’s working against the Kraken is that all of the teams ahead of them in the Pacific and the wildcard race also have relatively easy remaining schedules. The Golden Knights have the most difficult slate of the lot, but their 19th-overall difficulty still ranks below average compared to the rest of the league.

The Wild, Blues, Kings, and Flames have remaining schedules ranked 28th or lower by difficulty, significantly erasing what existed of the Kraken’s advantage in that department.

The Kraken still play each of the Golden Knights (March 21st), Kings (April 3rd), Blues (April 14th), and Wild (April 18th) once more before the season is up. Dropped points in any of those matchups will spell doom for the Kraken’s playoff hopes, meaning that they’ll have to go unbeaten across all four games to stand any chance of qualifying for the postseason.

Kraken Unlikely to Qualify for 2024 NHL Playoffs

Judging by the projections offered by some of the hockey industry’s top statistical models, the Kraken are facing a tremendous climb for the final wildcard slot.

MoneyPuck gives Seattle just over a 1.5% chance at the playoffs, ranking the lowest among those still realistically in the wildcard chase according to the site’s projections.

The Athletic is even more pessimistic, giving the Kraken around a 1% shot at the wildcard, while Hockey Reference’s model comes in at below 3%.

HockeyViz, with Seattle, is given a 3.3% chance before games are played on March 17th. It’s been a precipitous drop for the Kraken, who were given a likelihood as high as 49.4% as of January 14th by Hockey Viz’s calculations and were at 12.2% before this weekend’s games.

Given that the Kraken’s postseason odds have dropped below 5% according to every model of note, it’s very unlikely that we will see them in the playoffs for a second consecutive season. It’s not necessarily the worst thing for an organization who should be pivoting towards a retool, but it stings nonetheless even if the team’s future is undoubtedly bright.