Amidst a three-game skid, Seattle’s playoff dreams lay smoldering like embers barely clinging to life. We will see the team play out the season with little to play for except draft positioning, where cruelly the best thing for the team long-term is losing, leaving no outcome feeling good. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, knowing last year’s incredible playoff run will not be repeated this season.
Yet even in the face of this season’s disappointment, the future is very bright. The Kraken are building toward something great. But before we get to the optimistic stuff, we have to address the losing.
Really when you think about it, the losing is actually a good thing
I’m going to say something controversial, yet brave: winning is more fun than losing.
But I also believe that you have to eat your championship vegetables. I grew up in Colorado and before my senior year in high school, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver to become the Colorado Avalanche. They won the Stanley Cup that same season. And the feeling was “okay, that’s really neat.” There were no gut-wrenching playoff losses that kept 1996 Avalanche fans awake at night. No “if just this one thing had been different…” haunting them for years. And honestly? I kind of wish they hadn’t won the Cup right away. It’s just not as fun.
I’m also a Denver Nuggets fan and last year they won their first NBA championship after 47 years of not even ever making the finals before. I was lucky enough to be at the title-clinching game as a fan, and when they won the title, strangers were hugging. People were sobbing. Imagine the Mariners winning the World Series at home. It’s that. There’s absolutely nothing in life like the feeling of the erasure of sports heartbreak — that feeling as the clock is counting down and reality is setting and flooded with “is this thing I’ve wanted so badly for so long actually happening??” with a mixture of elation and disbelief. (If there’s ever a long-suffering team that’s playing in a championship-clinching game, I suggest going to a restaurant or bar where there are fans of that team. If they do win the title, seeing that look on their face is truly a unique human expression.)
Okay, okay, I’m not suggesting the Kraken should be the Mariners of the NHL. But I think a little heartbreak isn’t a bad thing. Congratulations. You’re paying your emotional dues. It’s like compound interest. When the Kraken do win a title, these losing years will make it feel a lot sweeter. I promise. I’m very old. I’ve been through some things.
The Kraken are an A+ organization
The Kraken grant independent outlets like us media credentials, which is certainly not the case for all teams. Everyone I’ve interacted with associated with the Kraken is — without exception — uncommonly nice while also being very good at their job. Media relations, security, the ushers, the broadcast crew, the PA announcer, and on and on. It’s a really friendly environment tempered with competence and an extremely diverse staff (in hockey!)
Climate Pledge Arena is beautiful. The in-game experience is among the very best in the NHL. I’ve been to many games both as a fan and as media. I’ve sat all over the stadium and I’ve never had a bad seat. The seats have cupholders. The food options are plentiful, delicious, and inexpensive. The mascot is ridiculous.
Even little details that many people don’t notice are taken care of. Most organists just play kind of the same songs that you would expect with not a lot of variation. But if you pay close attention to the organist during Kraken games, you may notice the music selection is different each game and certainly not your stock stadium anthems in organ form. Benny Drawbars tries not to play the same song twice in a season and there are sometimes hidden jokes and (sometimes obscure) references. Not to mention it’s hard to learn and perform that much music! It’s wonderfully entertaining to hear the organist every night and something I actively look forward to each game.
The house band choices are always great, and both arena DJs this season are excellent. For people like me who are really into stadium music choices, it just adds to the experience. And for those who don’t care one way or the other, it doesn’t detract from anything.
The TV broadcast is the best in the game. The radio broadcast is also exceptionally good. The Kraken have created a culture of attracting the best talent and treating them very well. They are not afraid to spend money. Most teams do not operate like this.
The on-ice product is on its way
Last year a lot of things went right for the Kraken, and this year they didn’t. Seattle is 25th in 5-on-5 shooting percentage this season. Last year they were 1st. We can say a lot of things about the season, but that’s descriptive enough to get a pretty good idea of what’s gone wrong.
But Dave Hakstol has a strong defensive system in place. The Kraken are 8th in the NHL in expected goals against this season. The team clearly still cares about winning and he hasn’t lost the locker room. And last year in the playoffs when given the opportunity, he went toe-to-toe strategically against two very good coaches in Jared Bednar and Pete Deboer.
The front office is smart, pragmatic, and analytically driven. There is a consistent, connected message throughout the organization.
Hockey rebuilds (or in this case, builds) typically take a few years. Vegas was a unicorn situation. GMs were caught off guard by Vegas and had one year before the expansion draft. They were inexperienced and hadn’t been through the process before and clearly undervalued the assets they were sending to Vegas.
For Seattle, GMs were determined not to look stupid. They also had four years to prepare instead of one. It may not be fair, but it is what it is. The Kraken were never given the opportunity the Golden Knights were given, so they chose to go the more patient route.
When I’m not covering a hockey team, I’m a professional poker player. I go down to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker, and in the early stages of the tournament, you see players overvalue the short-term and they try too hard to win right now and those people don’t last. Those people don’t win poker tournaments. It’s usually the patient ones, the ones who pick their spots early, grabbing value along the way. The ones who adapt their game and adjust as the environment around them changes. Then later in the tournament, they aggressively use their chips to knock out other players and take their chips. Those are the people who win.
Ron Francis and the front office remind me a lot of a winning poker player. The environment that was presented to Vegas didn’t exist for Seattle, so they adapted to the conditions. They’ve accumulated draft capital and built up a strong prospect pool. They’re picking their spots, collecting a cheap Tolvanen or Tatar or Bjorkstrand along the way.
A hockey rebuild is very similar. The ones who rush the process or aren’t smart with their assets end up with an endless rebuild.
The Kraken have a good long-term cap situation, and after just three drafts are already 9th in EPRinkside’s prospect pool rankings ($). Their best prospect, Shane Wright, hasn’t even played in the NHL full-time yet. Hockey is typically not a sport where draft picks contribute right away. He and Matty Beniers are the one-two punch at center that will form the core of the team for the next decade, and they haven’t even really played together. This team needs scoring talent, and there’s help coming — but they haven’t arrived yet.
Not all losing is the same. There’s losing as a sign of long-term trouble, and there’s losing as a sign of growing pains. Everything that’s going on with Seattle points to it being the latter.
The Kraken are doing things the right way. They are building towards being a consistent Stanley Cup contender with a multi-year window. This will take time, it will take patience, and it will probably take being sad until the day comes when we aren’t sad. We are still in the very early stages of something very promising in the making.
And hey, in the meantime, at least we can always listen to the organist.
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