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A closer look at the Seattle Kraken: Canucks Pacific Previews

Originally posted on Canucksarmy | By Lachlan Irvine | Last updated Aug 5, 2025 2:16 PM ET

In today’s National Hockey League, the biggest hurdle to a playoff spot is besting the seven teams in your own division. The Vancouver Canucks’ rivals in the Pacific Division, each at different points in their team’s evolution, will try to keep Vancouver out of the postseason party. And the only way to best your competition is by knowing them.

Every day this week, we’ll be looking at each of these Pacific Division teams and how they stack up compared to the Canucks.

Today, we’re looking at the Seattle Kraken.

In doing today’s Pacific Preview, I owe yesterday’s team an apology.

Normally, we do this series starting with the last-place team in the division and going upwards from there. But in a lapse in stat checking, I brashly assumed that the Anaheim Ducks had finished seventh as they often do. But they didn’t! That dishonour actually belongs to today’s team, the Seattle Kraken, who won 35 games just like the Ducks but lost four more games in regulation.

Therefore, we have to ask the question: how did the Kraken end up here?

Two seasons ago, the Kraken were a sophomore franchise that dragged the Stars to Game 7 of their semifinal series. Now, entering their fifth season, they’ve somehow regressed into expansion fodder again.

Seattle’s attempts to replicate the immediate success the Vegas Golden Knights had have not gone according to plan. Shane Wright and Matty Beniers haven’t panned out into the superstars they were expected to be in their draft years. Players they’ve given big chunks of cap space to in years past, like Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour, have been just okay. And their biggest move of the offseason was the one their mascot made running away from a bear in Alaska.

TROLL NARROWLY ESCAPES BEAR ENCOUNTER

*no trolls or bears were hurt in the making, always respect wildlife in their natural habitat pic.twitter.com/WBvw9RFkS0

— Buoy (@SEAbuoy) July 31, 2025

The brightest spot in the Kraken roster is a familiar face to Canucks fans; Jared McCann has seen his production dip slightly over the last three seasons, but he’s succeeded in leading the team in scoring over all four years of their existence. He’s going to need help from more forwards than his linemate Stephenson alone. Two new players are hoping to make that impact: Kaapo Kakko, who arrived from the New York Rangers in a midseason trade, and Mason Marchment, who the Kraken acquired from a Dallas Stars team looking to shed salary.

Marchment and Kakko are players who are both looking for statement seasons; one wants to prove he’s better off away from New York, the other that he was more important to the Stars’ winning culture than they realized. The Kraken’s entire forward group has a chip on their shoulder, too, hoping to prove they aren’t just four lines of middle-six forwards.

The Kraken’s top brass are certainly in panic mode right now. The honeymoon phase for Seattle is reaching its end, and fans are restless to see progress from the team on the ice before they re-up any season ticket commitments. Seattle has responded to this by letting Dan Bylsma go after just one season behind the bench, replacing him with former New York Islanders coach Lane Lambert. On paper, the pieces are there for a team that can at least compete for a Wild Card spot, but they still have to bank on a few things going right for them to have a shot.

For starters, it can’t be another year banking on Philipp Grubauer returning to form. Joey Daccord is firmly planted in the driver’s seat for the net, and he needs to run with it. With that, plus a little more luck in the health department and a fall off by one of the Pacific teams above them, Seattle can at least enter the playoff conversation again.

As far as the Canucks are concerned, this season series is arguably the most meaningful. The Kraken won their season series 3-0-1, featuring a pair of late-season flattenings by scores of 6-3 and 5-0. The Canucks missed the playoffs by exactly six points, and for that to change, they have to flip this rivalry back in their favour.