The Kraken made history, and now the Kraken have to let history go.
The Seattle Kraken have announced that Assistant coach Jessica Campbell, the first woman to be an active assistant NHL coach, will not renew her contract with the team to explore other opportunities in the NHL.
Campbell joined the organization with the Coachella Valley Firebirds as part of Dan Bylsma’s run of play with the team; helping to coach them to two consecutive Calder Cup finals. When Bylsma was promoted in 2024, she came along with him to become the first woman to hold an assistant coaching role at the highest level of north american pro hockey. Campbell was largely in charge of power play, and that was…usually something she had to work hard to get anything out of, as the Kraken generally did not have a roster that lent itself to scoring a lot of power play goals thanks to a near fatal crash of shooting-% and bad luck in her first year. Mercifully, they did rebound in 2025-26, though obviously not to the level that fans were hoping.
As for what lies ahead for Jessica, there are plenty of teams right now that are cleaning house or are looking to clean house now that they’ve been unceremoniously dumped from playoff contention. If she plays her cards right, she could very easily end up back on another bench in the near future. The year-over-year improvement suggests that, had the Kraken maybe had a little more punch in their scoring game, they could’ve experienced a dramatic uplift.
There’s also the PWHL route, which is…a thorny topic for this specific person. It goes a little something like this; she absolutely could get a job helping to coach the Torrent or the Goldeneyes or the Sirens or the Scepters or the other two teams they’re adding to the league; might even get a head coaching job from it…or she could continue NHL trailblazing; knowing you may have to continue to work for teams that are not necessarily great or well managed, but can normalize a woman’s presence on the bench as part of the group of people the players have to listen to. If she does it long enough, she could theoretically find herself the first woman head coach in the NHL.
Do you suffer slings and arrows long enough to improve your standing in the boys club atmosphere of the NHL to make your mark on history? Or do you forsake it to begin work in what is a very quickly growing and momentum building but still rather small league; as a coach who came in from said Boys Club with the knowledge that once that door closes, it might never re-open again. Even if the players she’s worked with have absolutely nothing but uniform praise for her efforts, that praise could fall on the deaf ears of management and ownership circles that are tighter than chemical bonds.
Like I said, it’s thorny.
Regardless of her path, Jessica has done what was previously thought impossible, even if it ended in disappointment here in Seattle. She has had nothing but the utmost respect from the players she coached and now she gets to find a new space in this league, where she can be both appreciated and enjoyed for what she brings.
I, as well as everybody else at DJLR, wish her nothing but the best.