Five years after their inaugural season, the Seattle Kraken have yet to reach the same level of success as the Vegas Golden Knights, who entered the league four years beforehand. While the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023 and are a perennial playoff contender, the Kraken reached the playoffs only once.
The Kraken have spent the past five years as a defensive-minded club, hoping to use solid goaltending and blue-line depth to grind out wins. They’ve been lacking scoring punch for most of their tenure, and haven’t had a scoring star to lead their offense and give the fans someone to get excited about.
That could push general manager Jason Botterill into the trade market in pursuit of a scoring forward. He attempted to acquire winger Artemi Panarin from the New York Rangers before the Olympic break. However, Panarin rejected his expensive contract offer and was instead traded to the Los Angeles Kings.
Having missed the playoffs for the third straight season, the Kraken could step up efforts to land a scorer via the trade market. They have the projected cap space ($28.4 million) to take on a high-salaried star. They also have two first-round picks in this year’s draft and a deep prospect pool to draw on for trade bait.
