When the Kraken defeated the Minnesota Wild on Saturday for their first victory of the season, there was no Davy Jones Hat. The traditional postgame award that literally came from the Pirates of the Caribbean prop department was replaced by a Seattle Kraken championship belt.
After the game, Kate Shefte (Seattle Times) asked coach Dan Bylsma about the postgame award. He clearly doesn’t want to say much about it as she then asks him a couple of followup questions.
Shefte: “Are you doing postgame player of the game honors this year?”
{three second pause}
Bylsma: “Our team is, yes.”
This is unusual behavior by Bylsma. Unlike Dave Hakstol, Dan is much more forthcoming and wears his heart on his sleeve a lot more. Of course every coach is going to be evasive when it comes to injury information or something that could give an opponent an advantage, but asked about the postgame honor? There’s no obvious reason to be evasive. He has a mild stress response and tenses up at the question. Intriguing.
Shefte: “How’re you doing it? What do they get?”
Bylsma: “Uh, they get uh {searching}….a belt.”
More unusual behavior by Dan. It’s the first time I can recall him searching for words in any media setting. What doesn’t he want to say? He lingers before he lands on “a belt,” said with some authority.
Shefte: “Cool. Where did it come from?”
Bylsma: “Ah…{quietly} you know…certain people in our organization dug up some {eyebrow raise} stuff along the way and really Ebs decided what it was going to be. So yeah, we dug it up a little bit ago and Ebs was all on board for giving it out and tonight gave it to Ebs for his 300th goal and the impact he had on the game.”
He starts out with the same hesitation to answer the question, but hits his stride. Now he knows where he’s going, but he’s still being vague. “Some stuff” with a cheeky eyebrow raise in the middle? Instead of reluctance, his secrecy is now coupled with mischievousness.
The tension in his face and shoulders from the start of the exchange starts to dissolve — then dissipates completely when he talks about Eberle.
Do not overlook the “cool” by Shefte. It’s a friendly “cool,” keeping the mood light in the face of his guardedness and making it seem less like an interrogation hitting him with the fourth question about it. It breaks up the chain of questions and says, “I want to get to the truth but I want you to feel at ease while I do it.”
But when Eberle was asked about it, he gave what appeared to be a slightly different answer:
Bob Condor: “Can you tell us anything about the belt?“
Eberle: “It just shifted from the hat last year. I think Dan found it. I don’t know where he found it. But that’ll be the token for this year.“
Eberle did not seem evasive or uncomfortable.
Why is everyone being so secret around here?
On its face, it seems like Ebs and Dan are saying different things.
“Ebs decided what it was going to be.” -Dan
“I think Dan found it. I don’t know where he found it.” -Ebs
These do not have to be mutually exclusive. For example, this scenario:
{The following conversation is purely speculative.}
“Hey Ebs, here’s just an idea but here’s this belt. It’s your call.” -Dan
“I love it! Sign me up, coach!” -Ebs
But why would Dan be so guarded about it when asked?
I can think of any number of reasons:
- He was asked to hold off saying anything in the postgame scrum and let the social media team do the reveal.
- It came from a (potentially stupid) inside joke, the kind where you had to be there and “there” is the locker room and he didn’t want to share details.
- This wasn’t his decision, it was a team thing and he wanted to leave it up to them to talk about it.
- There’s a conspiracy coming from the top to push a pro-belt agenda and he wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to say beyond it being a belt.
Dan lingering before confidently saying “belt” suggests to me that the presence of belt itself was not a secret, but the details were. However, being cagey about the details has a very short expiration date since it would be put out on team social media in a few minutes anyway.
My theory is that they were waiting to put it out on socials and the origin story is something he wants to keep among themselves, and “certain people” and “stuff” is shorthand for “we’re keeping some stuff in house.” That lines up with all the behavior we’ve seen and everyone’s motivations/incentives are also consistent with this explanation.
Or is that what they want you to think??
Her?
This is what the belt looks like:
If your first thought was, “That’s really cool and I wish I could spend up to $549.99 (plus shipping) for it,” I have great news for you!
On opening day of the NHL season, the WWE put out this press release:
OFFICIALLY LICENSED NHL LEGACY TITLE BELTS AVAILABLE AHEAD OF 2024-25 NHL SEASON
NHL Legacy Title Belts for All 32 Teams Available for Purchase Via NHLShop.com, NHLShop.ca, WWEShop.com & Fanatics.com
October 8, 2024 – NHL-inspired WWE® legacy title belts featuring the official colors and branding of all 32 teams are available ahead of the 2024-25 NHL season as part of a multi-year licensing deal struck by The National Hockey League (NHL) and WWE.
The line of officially licensed NHL products can be purchased at NHLShop.com, NHLShop.ca, WWEShop.com and Fanatics.com. The WWE legacy title belts feature custom side plates emblazoned with the logo and official markings of each team.
An original, unique idea that was on-theme for the team was replaced by a generic item that is made for every team and can be bought from the NHL shop. Belts have been done by many teams, but the Davy Jones Hat was unique to the Kraken with an outrageously cool origin story. I get wanting to change the tradition. The last three years haven’t been stellar, it’s a new coach, a new era, a new TV network, and it feels a little bit like a soft reset. They didn’t win a whole lot with the hat. But of all the things…surely they could have done better than an item sold in the NHL Shop, right?
The Kraken haven’t made the owners the kind of money they probably anticipated after the initial interest wavered. A licensing deal with the WWE and a secret sweetener to turn it into a Kraken locker room thing would present to the uncynical as an organic thing that happens to also be available for sale in the NHL shop. Or perhaps this secret agreement goes even further up to the commissioner himself. This was a WWE/NHL partnership, after all.
“Certain people in our organization dug up some {eyebrow raise} stuff.”
Who are these “certain people” in the organization? And what stuff are they digging up? Are we getting too close to the truth? Is Kate Shefte in danger? Buoy may have already carried out a hit before…
Why does this matter?
It doesn’t. At all. And it’s not for us, it’s for the players. The hat handoff was on social media and it gave fans a little peek inside the locker room. Fans get that same peek, but with different hardware.
But indulge me for a moment.
The first years of the organization were defined by a patient, methodical approach informed by the idea that building or rebuilding a hockey team takes time, developing through the draft and preserving salary cap room for when they hit their contention window.
Then this summer, everything seemed to flip. Ron Francis, who historically has been extremely conservative in free agency, handed out two to Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour and are tied to the team for the next 7 years. The Stephenson contract looks like a big overpay, the Kraken are completely capped out, and unlike the other teams capped out, they aren’t realistically in their championship window.
When someone’s behavior changes, it’s usually because their incentives have changed. This abrupt change of philosophy is very out of character for Francis. It sure seems like there might be some influence by ownership to win sooner with the Sonics very likely coming back in the next couple of years as an NBA expansion team.
From NHL insider Elliotte Friedman:
“This is an important season for Seattle, with NBA expansion on the horizon. It’s not a coincidence their major free-agent acquisitions — Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson — both have winning pedigrees, big presence on the ice and, especially in Montour’s case, off it. The Kraken wish to establish a bolder, more boisterous, identity. Stephenson is there to do the heavy lifting, so Matt Beniers and Shane Wright can spread their offensive wings. Brandon Tanev is a pending unrestricted free agent, and there’s interest in him. That’s one to watch.“
I think there’s a little bit of fear that Kraken becoming a little bit more generic is a harbinger of losing Camelot and in 5-10 years they will be no different than the Vancouver Canucks or LA Kings. Kraken fans have something really precious and don’t want to lose it.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s a hat, a belt, a shawl, or a chainmail coif. As long as they are winning, they can award whatever they want.