Let's Get Kraken

Off-season and beyond

The Start of The Off-Season

The 2026 offseason started a week later then the Kraken were used to after making the playoffs for the first time in their history. After the 1^st round playoff exit the Kraken management sat down to discuss what the future holds and what was the best plan going forward. There was a lot of back and forth with do we try and build of this miracle playoff team we built which was on the older side and had a lot of 2–3-year contracts or do we think about the future and capitalize on the value for the guys we have now. We decided to think about the future and blow it up (again) some may wonder why after pulling off a miracle that nobody thought would work.

The Reasoning

After doing a deep dive into the direction of the division the Kraken thought it would be best to retool which ended up being a rebuild but why?

 The Flames took a step back last year to retool and they for sure did wining the draft lottery and adding Mckenna to an already stacked team. We knew they were going to move more pieces and build another completive team for this upcoming year. The Oilers well they completely blew up their team 2 season ago and ended up getting the 1^st overall pick in 2025 with the capitals 2025 1st and drafting Schaefer. They ended up trading for Auston Matthews this season and I think after that point the direction changed for them, and we knew just like the Flames they were going to keep adding and make it harder for us to compete. Now the Ducks this is a team who was right behind the kraken fighting for a playoff spot up until almost the last game of the season. So, we knew that after that they were going to be a problem for us and will get better. The Sharks will be completive for 2-3 more years then I think we will see them take a dive down the division which will help the Kraken lots of UFA’s coming in the next few years. With them always being right against the cap and needing to resign the likes of Suzuki and Hughes to extension this will cause cap problem for them even with the cap going up. Then we have the NHL Leaf’s of the DCHL the Vegas Golden Knights a good regular season team but chokes in the playoffs. Then we have the Canuks they blew it up this year to and sent all the star power out. The Kings are still rebuilding too. The Kraken Management put more analytics into there decision, but we felt with this we were right where we wanted to be.

The Start of the future.

When we went on are playoff run, we completely emptied are draft picks and prospects to make it happen, so we needed to add picks, prospects and young players back. It all started with us trading Hampus Lindholm who only had 1 year left on his contract to the Rangers, for a 2026 2^nd,

Ehlers to the Devils for are own 2027 2^nd and 10m DCHL cash. We could have got more for Ehlers but getting back are own 2^nd in 27 was important to us and held a lot of value.

Buchnevich and Lehkonen to the Oilers for Frost-Barron-Woll-26 3^rd-28 2^nd and cash. This trade to the oilers was the starting piece to the blockbuster trade the Kraken were about to make with the Pens.

EP40-Frost-28 2^nd to the Pens for a 1^st 27-2^nd 26-Kindel-Lekkerimaki. We worked on this trade for about a week and when the Kraken got Frost from the oilers a player the Pens really like it helped finalize all the details to get it done. We see Kindel as our 2C and potentially our 1C.

We Ended up trading the 1^st we got from the Pens and other pieces to the Wild to acquire our own 2027 1^st back, gaining this back was the top of our priority list as we wanted to have control of the pick and we knew with the season we will have, having the Sea 1^st which could be a top 5 pick was the best pick for us to have over the Pens 1^st. there is a lot more trades the Kraken did of course won’t go through them all but some key assets we gained in trades. Carter George, Kashawn Aitcheson, Brodie Ziemer, Brayden Yager, David Reinbacher, 6 2026 1^st which we used to gain some top-quality prospects.

The Draft

The Kraken scouts were busy this draft and had a big task on there hands. Some say this draft wasn’t as strong has years past and there were a lot of players who may take an extra year to develop to the pro stage. The Kraken organization phone lines were busy in the first round with a few Gm’s reaching out to see if the Kraken would move down since a lot of players kept falling and they wanted to snag them but GM Brideau stayed put during the first round ands went with his gut and managed to come out the first round with 6 high-quality prospects.

Pick 10. Ethan Belchetz

Pick 16. J.P Hurlbert

Pick 18. Xavier Villeneuve

Pick 19. Adam Novotny

Pick 27. Elton Hermansson

Pick 30. Ryan Roobroeck

Free Agency

What an interesting FAF this was this year a quiet one for the Kraken who didn’t sign any top players, which in all honesty was fine. There was plenty of teams who needed to add cap to get to the cap floor and most were bottom teams and they went and spent the bank on some players and top ones too. The new FA trading rule will be an advantage for the Kraken as these bottom teams who added these top players can’ trade them until they have played 20 games, now that is 20 games more with top players and 20 more games the bottom team could win and ruin their chances at a top lottery pick.

The Kraken quickly pivoted and instead of spending the bank on player to get to the floor the Kraken decided adding bad contracts and gaining assets to take the bad contracts was the smarter thing.

The Kraken asking price to take on these contracts was a 2028 or 2029 2^nd.

Trade 1

Teuvo Teravainen, Alexander Georgiev and Chi 28 2^nd and the Kraken sent the Blackhawks a 27 5^th NJD

Trade 2

Jonathan Drouin, Vladislav Namestnikov and ANA 28 2^nd and the Kraken sent the Ducks a 27-5th NYI

Trade 3

Dante Fabbro, Nick Paul and SJ 2^nd 27 and the Kraken sent the Sharks a 27-6^th Utah

When the Kraken acquired Teravainen as a cap dump, they felt like he still held value and with teams overpaying in FA they needed to take advantage of this and flip him and they sure did they flipped him to the Avs for a Col 28 2^nd