The Seattle Kraken have yet to cross the halfway point of the 2025-26 NHL season, but their playoff hopes might already be hanging by a thread. The team has been mired in a significant slump since the end of November, losing 10 of their last 13 games and 9 of their last 10 to fall out of a playoff spot with a 12-13-6 (30 points) record through 31 games.
Some of the misfortune can be attributed to a rash of injuries, as Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz, Ryker Evans, and Kaapo Kakko have each missed eight or more games this season, with Schwartz and McCann currently out with injuries that carry weeks-long recovery timelines. Those four players accounted for a quarter of the Kraken’s goals last season, and their collective absence has led to a major power outage in attack this season.
The Kraken haven’t fared poorly on the defensive end, but the aforementioned scoring problems have overshadowed everything else this season. Despite ranking in the top half of the league by expected goals, scoring chances, and goals against per-60 minutes in all situations, Seattle sits in the bottom five leaguewide by goals, shots, expected goals, and scoring chances created per-60 minutes. For as good as any team is defensively, they still need to score a couple to win the game, and that is just not happening right now for the Kraken.
While the Kraken have handed young players like Matty Beniers, Shane Wright, and Berkly Catton increased responsibilities, the reins to the team have yet to be fully turned over to the youth. Six of the team’s top eight skaters by average time on ice this season are 29 years of age or older, and Joey Daccord is the youngest of the three goalies on the NHL roster (also 29).
The Kraken are staring down a third consecutive season out of the playoffs and fourth in five years of existence, while also boasting one of the older contingents of core players in the league. They are once again occupying the mushy middle rather than recognizing the current group does not have what it takes to make a deep run in the playoffs, and changing course on the organization’s direction.
If current trends continue and the season falls off the rails by New Year’s Day, the franchise must finally commit to stripping down this poorly constructed roster. It’s a decision that I and many others have clamored for since the beginning, following the front office’s puzzling execution of the expansion draft, but one they have teetered back and forth on for too long, and could be pushed into making by the current stretch of poor results.
Kraken Being Leapfrogged During Current Slump
Since Nov. 18, the Kraken have accrued the fewest wins (three) and points (seven) in the league, and own the NHL’s worst PTS% over that span (.262). Direct playoff rivals, including the Minnesota Wild, Vegas Golden Knights, San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, and the Utah Mammoth, all passed the Kraken in the standings in recent weeks.
Seattle’s hot start was a mirage propped up by decent goaltending and a hot streak of finishing, earning them points in 16 of their first 21 games. They have been one of the worst possession teams at five-on-five this season, routinely being outshot and outchanced on a nightly basis, a trend that can only produce wins for so long before disaster strikes.
Despite their abysmal form, the Kraken still have a leg up on the NHL’s basement dwellers in the playoff chase – for now. The Kraken are one of eight teams with a PTS% of .500 or lower, and one of six teams sitting between .450 and .500 in a crowded jumble at the bottom of the league standings.
For what it’s worth, the Kraken sit seven points behind the Sharks for the Western Conference’s second and final wildcard spot with three games in hand and 51 total games left on the schedule. All is not lost, and the Kraken could climb back into the playoff race with a hot week or two, especially with five games coming against Pacific Division rivals before 2025 is over. Whether that is something fans should hope for, given the team’s apparent limitations, is another discussion entirely.
Kraken Face Crowded Race to the Bottom
For all the optimism the upcoming schedule could bring, changes in direction will have to be made if the Kraken begins to slip away by the start of 2026. At that point, the goal should be to finish in the bottom three by any means necessary to guarantee a top-five pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, bringing with it a shot at securing the services of a top prospect like Penn State’s Gavin McKenna, Frolunda’s Ivar Stenberg, or North Dakota’s Keaton Verhoeff.
The only problem with attempting to pivot is that the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, and the St. Louis Blues (three of the four teams below them by PTS%), all have either significantly more difficult remaining schedules than Seattle or in Vancouver’s case, have already waved the white flag on their season after trading franchise defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Wild last week.
The battle for the best lottery odds should be fierce, but that doesn’t mean that the Kraken should be afraid of wading into those waters. The best teams are built through the draft, and one of the best teams (26th in PTS% since 2021-22) is not.
Kraken Should Be Sellers
While the Kraken don’t have a player to dangle to teams on par with Hughes, they could stimulate the trade market by loudly announcing their intentions to fully rebuild around their young core of Beniers, Wright, and Catton.
Captain Jordan Eberle, Schwartz, Mason Marchment, Eeli Tolvanen, and Jamie Oleksiak are unrestricted free agents (UFAs) after this season, while Vince Dunn and Jared McCann become UFAs following the end of the 2026-27 campaign.
Brandon Montour ($7.14 million cap hit), Adam Larsson ($5.25 million), or Daccord ($5 million) are on long-term deals, but ones that don’t carry hefty cap commitments and could become even more enticing with salary retention or by swapping them for contenders’ bad contracts with plenty of draft pick sweeteners attached.
Fans might hold their noses at the possibility of a sell-off, but very few of those players will provide positive value by the time the Kraken’s promising prospect pool pays dividends. Tolvanen is the youngest of the 10 at 26, with the remaining nine aged 29 or older. When true contention is so far away, hitching one’s wagon to a veteran core in the cap era makes little sense.
The front office doesn’t need to trade all of them, as having some veteran presence would be beneficial for helping shepherd a flock of talented but inexperienced young players. What they should do is, like Vancouver, recognize that the current mix is not working, understand that teams do not win Stanley Cups without star power, and reorient themselves accordingly.
Or they can continue to tether themselves to expensive free agents past their prime and cling to delusions of competitiveness while more rational organizations pass them by. The last two weeks of 2025 should provide a clear answer for their path forward; will the Kraken recognize it when it comes?
Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and the NHL.
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