The Kraken may be looking at the next season as a lost cause, but the long view points to 2027-’28 and beyond as the real target.
That’s where the optimism lives, at least if the front office can sort through the mess on the blue line and make the right calls over the next couple of years. For now, though, the defense remains the clearest sign of where the team stands.
Cale Fleury was already framed as a wild card, and that label fits for Josh Mahura and potentially Ville Ottavainen as well. All three feel more like stopgaps than permanent answers while the back end waits to settle into place.
The bigger decisions are coming fast. Next spring, Seattle will either pay up to keep Vince Dunn, who is nearing unrestricted free agency, or watch the left-shot defenseman walk. At the same time, the club will have to open the wallet for Ryker Evans, who will be 25 and due a significant raise after making about two million dollars over the last two seasons as a pending restricted free agent.
There’s also the possibility that Chase Reid is part of the conversation by then. The seventh-overall pick in this past NHL Draft is young, so it may be too early to expect anything certain. Still, he’s in the mix.
Blake Fiddler could be there too. Seattle took the right-shot defenseman in the second round in 2025, and he has spent the last three seasons with the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Western Hockey League.
Beyond that, Brandon Montour should still be in the picture unless there’s a trade, with Adam Larsson and Ryan Lindgren also expected to remain.
Put it together and the shape of the group starts to emerge: veterans in place, young defensemen hopefully added, and a blue line that might finally make more sense in the years ahead.
And if the season goes far enough off the rails, there’s even the lottery angle. Finish low enough, win the NHL Draft Lottery, and Seattle could land Landon DuPont, the consensus No. 1 pick for 2027. The right-shot Calgary native has already played two seasons just up the road with the Everett Silvertips and is now headed east to Michigan to skate for the Wolverines.
For now, though, the message is plain enough: this next season is a wash.
In Other News...
Flyers Rumor Reignites Familiar Question About Their Next Real Upgrade
Rumors around the Flyers have a way of circling back to the same basic idea for Seattle: if the Kraken ever decided to listen on a real difference-maker, Vince Dunn would be one of the first names to surface. The broader market has been busy with its own moving parts, from Jason Robertson settling in on a one-year deal in Dallas to Ottawa keeping its focus on adding a scoring winger and a right-handed defenseman, but for Seattle the conversation still keeps landing on whether its blue line has the kind of upgrade other teams would covet.
For now, though, the Kraken are operating like a team trying to compete rather than a club ready to strip things down. That matters, because it keeps Dunn in a very different category than the kind of player who gets shopped just to see what is out there, even as Seattle continues to sort through its roster decisions and weigh where the next changes might come. The Flyers interest is a reminder of how often these questions resurface around the same core names, but it does not mean the answer is close to changing. [Read more 🡒]
Kraken Fans Can Feel What This Offseason Still Failed To Fix
Seattles offseason has brought a few familiar kinds of transactions, the sort that suggest activity without quite changing the shape of the roster. Bobby McMann is back, Mackie Samoskevich arrived in a trade and got extended, and the departures of Jaden Schwartz and Jamie Oleksiak only sharpen the sense that the Kraken have been shuffling pieces more than upgrading the lineup.
The bigger issue is what still feels unresolved beneath the surface. Seattle remains older than an ideal team on the rise, and while there is a promising wave of young talent coming behind Matty Beniers, the near-term outlook still points more toward fringe playoff territory than a true leap forward. Until the front office finds a way to address the missing impact up front, the offseason will look less like a reset and more like another missed chance to change the ceiling. [Read more 🡒]