Welcome to the Sprongoboros, friends. time is a wheel and we’re in the spokes.
Out of nowhere, while I’m at Yoke’s, I get a notification that the Kraken will be making a trade. This is important as they’ve been struggling for about two weeks straight.
It’s far more confusing that they’re bringing back an original depth player for that purpose.
Elliott Friedman announced out of the blue today that the Kraken would be picking up Dutch-born Forward Daniel Sprong from the Vancouver Canucks, with the return being Future Considerations. Which is to say…free.
Sprong, as I’m sure most of you remember, was part of the inaugural season of the Kraken back in 2021 as part of a trade for Marcus Johansson, after which he was one of many players on the Kraken who had a major career year during the Kraken’s surprising 2022-23 season; finishing with 46 points in 66 games as a depth forward playing an average of 11:25 TOI. After that, he made his way to Detroit, made some friends, and had another decent year with the Red Wings with a 43 point in 76 game season, before moving on to the Canucks.
So how was he on the Vancouver Canucks that they’d be willing to give him away for free?
…He’s been fine?
He’s unquestionably a depth guy and that’s how he’s been deployed, but he’s been over 50% in most analytics, has 3 points (1 goal, 2 assists), could probably stand to cut into the middle a little more on his shots? He’s still a pretty solid depth guy, at least from the limited information we have from 9 games played. Sprong just seems to be one of those guys who never finds a permanent home in the NHL, or one who hovers around a certain Conference and plays for a certain selection of teams.
But I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, and so the Kraken’s offense, with its myriad issues, will likely have another decent hand to hopefully spark some scoring.
Let’s all welcome back Daniel Sprong to the Deep!