Seattle Kraken in 'no rush' to hire head coach

In early November, Sean Mallon of The Hockey Writers suggested that NHL expansion team Seattle Kraken needed to "move quick" with the hiring of the club's first head coach. 

General manager Ron Francis doesn't agree with that a few weeks before the Christmas holiday. 

"No real rush on the timeline there," Francis explained while speaking with Greg Wyshynski of ESPN on Tuesday. "We still don't have an understanding of what the 2020-21 season is going to look like, and how many games that they'll play."

The Kraken won't take the ice until the start of the 2021-22 campaign, which feels far off in the distant future because of the worsening coronavirus pandemic. While previous reports suggested the NHL and NHL Players' Association were on track to begin the upcoming season on Jan. 1, such a scenario becomes more unlikely with each day an agreement between those two entities isn't announced. 

"We want to get a lay of the landscape before making that decision," Francis added. 

Back in late October, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN's Emily Kaplan that the league is targeting a "normal" format for the 2021-22 season. However, the closure of the border that separates Canada and the United States to non-essential travel continues to complicate things for a league that contains multiple Canadian teams yearning to commute to and from their home markets for games. 

The Toronto Raptors have temporarily relocated to Tampa for the NBA season scheduled to get underway on Dec. 22.