The Kraken preseason is already giving fans a couple of marked dates to circle, with home games set for September 19 against the Vancouver Canucks and September 24 against the Calgary Flames. If you’re looking to catch the team early, those are the two Seattle dates on the schedule that was released last month.
One of the more interesting names in the system is Hawke Huff, the Kraken’s first Washington state-born prospect. Whether he ultimately sticks as that kind of milestone player is still to be determined, but the 20-year-old from Mazama has already carved out a path worth watching.
He was picked in the fifth round of the NHL Draft just a few days after turning 20, and he spent three seasons in junior hockey with the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the USHL. Huff went undrafted in his first two years of eligibility, then took a clear step forward last season and earned a nomination for the league’s defenseman-of-the-year award.
He’s listed at 6-2, 200 pounds and shoots right.
Around the league, Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson just set a new financial bar. The 21-year-old became the NHL’s highest paid player last week after Anaheim matched an offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers that will pay him $18-million per season for five years.
Once a player finishes a three-year entry-level deal and becomes a restricted free agent, other teams can come in with offer sheets, and that’s exactly what Philadelphia did. The Ducks had to match the contract or lose him, and if they had let Carlsson go, the Flyers would have owed Anaheim four future first-round NHL Draft picks.
The league’s compensation rules scale with contract value, and Carlsson’s deal landed at the top end.
The Shane Wright trade talk is still hanging around, too. That speculation continues, and the latest update was the latest update.
There was also a note from former Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube, who worked with current Kraken coach Lane Lambert as an associate in Toronto for the 2024-’25 season. Berube, a Stanley Cup winner with St. Louis in 2019, had plenty of praise for Lambert in a video interview:
“Lane’s a very detailed guy, knows the game extremely well. I think he brings a lot of emotion to the game which is great.
As an assistant coach, whether it’s in the room with us, on the bench, a very prepared and detailed guy. He was great to work with, I really enjoyed him.
I learned a lot from him, just, he’s been around a long time, so, he was great for us and I wish him all the best in Seattle.”
In the trivia department, the answer to the question about the remaining original Kraken from the 2021 expansion draft is Jared McCann, Jordan Eberle, Adam Larsson, Vince Dunn and goalie Philipp Grubauer.
And yes, there’s been some wedding news in Kraken circles. Current goalie Philipp Grubauer and former Seattle goalie Chris Driedger both got married in the last few days, with photos of Grubauer’s wedding making the rounds on social media. The captioned photo included former Seattle forward Yanni Gourde on the left, then McCann, then the groom, then Larsson, with Eeli Tolvanen tucked away in the back just above Dunn.
On the women’s hockey side, Glenn Dreyfuss had the market’s most thorough coverage of the Seattle Torrent from the franchise’s origin through its first season, and he also handled a recent report on soon-to-be rookie star Abbey Murphy.
There was also a note about the end of Vancouver sports talk station AM650, which had been the Canucks’ flagship home. The station’s hockey coverage had become part of the broader Seattle-Vancouver back-and-forth, especially after an afternoon show in early July mocked the Kraken for missing out on Artemi Panarin, who chose the LA Kings, and Jason Robertson, who declined to be traded from the Dallas Stars to Seattle.
In Other News...
One Oilers Roster Decision Is Still Hanging Over The Summer
The summer trade market has already started to stir around the Kraken, even if Seattle has not shown any interest in moving Shane Wright cheaply. Vancouver has checked in on the young center, and the conversation has quickly run into the familiar hurdle that comes with a player the Kraken still view as part of their long-term core. With Wright under team control for years to come, Seattle has every reason to treat any serious inquiry as a premium proposition rather than a simple roster shuffle.
What makes the situation worth watching is that the Canucks are not alone in trying to sort out their own priorities, and that keeps the pressure on Seattle to hold firm. Vancouver has made clear it wants strong value in any major deal, not a salary dump, while Edmonton is still working through its own restricted free agent business and focusing on outside additions. For the Kraken, the result is a market where interest is real, but so far nobody appears eager to pay the price Seattle is asking. [Read more 🡒]