The 2023-24 regular season trickles to an end for the Seattle Kraken. It began as a campaign filled with hope after making the playoffs last season and even winning a round but ended in disappointment. The club could never get out of its way, lacking a finishing touch and unable to create many scoring chances to begin with. It wasn’t all bad this season. As the team preps for curtain call on Thursday night versus the Wild in Minnesota, we recall the highs and lows in our 2023-24 Team Awards. Let’s get Krak-…uh, let’s get on with it!
Most Unexpected Result: Beating the Bruins in Boston
The day after Valentine’s, Seattle paid a visit to the Boston Bruins. The Kraken were going through a rough patch, losing eight of 11 games, although they had come off a close shave versus the New York Islanders just before. With a 22-21-10 record and their place in the Western Conference playoff race precarious to say the least, the Bruins posed a considerable threat at 31-12-10. They essentially looked like last season’s club that bullied its way to the top of the standings.
It got ugly early, with David Pastrnak netting his 34th of the campaign barely five minutes into the contest. This was to be expected. What wasn’t was a 4-1 win for Seattle, with Jordan Eberle, Eeli Tolvanen, Matty Beniers, and Jared McCann all responding. The final score flattered the visitors insofar as Boston greatly outshot Seattle 37-26. This match proved to be another stepping stone in Joey Daccord’s journey from obscure backup to potential future number-one netminder.
Biggest Surprise: Joey Daccord
We’ve written a ton about Daccord over the past couple of months, and rightfully so. He is, after all, the player we deemed Team MVP for 2023-24. The Kraken keeper earns himself what in soccer parlance is called a “double,” because in becoming the team MVP, he is de facto the biggest surprise of the season.
Related: Seattle Kraken 2023-24 Obituary: Sunken Playoff Hopes
The reality is that prior to the present campaign, Daccord had never played in more than five games in a single season despite being drafted back in 2019 by the Ottawa Senators. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and when established goalie Philipp Grubauer suffered a bad injury in early December, it was the Boston native’s time to shine. Shine he has. Heading into match 82, he has the sixth-best goals-against average in the NHL at 2.45 in 49 games and fifth-best save percentage at .916.
Best Move for the Future: Calling Shane Wright’s Number
It’s very tempting to argue in favor of the Eberle extension. He’s a leader in the dressing room as a 14-year veteran, to say nothing of being an iron man. He played 79 games of Seattle’s maiden season, then all 82 games of the sophomore season, and unless he’s a healthy scratch versus the Wild, that will be 78 this season.
However, the reality is that to be working towards the future one has to make moves that mean something deeper for the future. Yes, Eberle can lead, but lead who? The answer on the lips of most people who follow the Kraken is forward Shane Wright. A first-round selection in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft – fourth overall – he has spent most of his career with the team’s American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
He made a few brief appearances in three games near the start of the season, but his breakout party was earlier this month. In five games in April, he scored four goals, added one helper for five total points, and had a plus-2 goal differential. He’s already been sent back to the Firebirds for their playoff run, but Kraken fans got a taste of things to come and they looked great.
Glass Half Full-Empty Moment: 50 Shots Versus Sharks in Loss
We mentioned in the opening paragraph that one of the team’s weaknesses this season was the lack of offensive production and simply creating chances. That definitely was not a problem when the lowly San Jose Sharks visited for the final home game on April 11.
Seattle bombarded rookie Sharks goalie Devin Cooley with 50 attempts on target. Never in franchise history had the Kraken mustered more offense. Five players had at least four shots, including Wright’s Firebird teammate Ryan Winterton, who was also called up from the AHL at around the same time. The only problem was that the Sharks’ Cooley played the game of his life, making 49 saves, many of them superlative, to help the Sharks win 3-1.
Good game or bad game? Frankly, given how the Kraken have played in 2023-24, it was a little bit of both.
Worst Moment: 5-4 OT Loss to Golden Knights
Not all the games can be sugar-coated. While fingers can be pointed at any of the 48 defeats (regulation, overtime, and shootout), the one that stung the most was on March 12 versus the Vegas Golden Knights.
At the time the Kraken were playing the second of an all-important five-game homestand. They trailed the visitors by nine points for a wild card spot. The task was tall, but not impossible. Seattle erupted for four goals on the night, had a 4-2 advantage in the third period, and honestly looked like the superior outfit. Then disaster struck as Vegas netted twice to tie, the second coming with 17 seconds left in regulation. Vegas’ Jack Eichel sent Kraken fans home stunned with an OT marker. Judging by how Seattle has played since then, this game probably shook their spirit.
Best Moment: Winter Classic Versus Golden Knights
We won’t let those Golden Knights off the hook that easily. Yes, they earned a crucial win in March that helped them make the postseason and greatly hurt Seattle’s chances. However, the most magical moment of the 2023-24 season was the Winter Classic, which was played on New Year’s Day at T-Mobile Park, home of the MLB’s Seattle Mariners.
With both teams rocking stunningly gorgeous hockey sweaters, the Kraken gave the 47,313 fans in attendance something to cheer about with a 3-0 win. It was an outdoor game with a different flavor given that it doesn’t usually drop to freezing temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and featured the NHL’s two newest franchises, but it looked amazing, especially the jerseys.
This article began with a mention of the hope that permeated last fall when the season began. The beautiful thing about hope is that it springs eternal since there is always next season (we’ll tip-toe around bad Arizona Coyotes jokes). Clearly, some work needs to be done by general manager (GM) Ron Francis this offseason to spruce up certain elements. Some of those may be hinted at during the Firebirds’ playoff run in the AHL, others during free agency this summer, and some at the NHL Entry Draft. It will be interesting to see just how long Francis adheres to the slow but steady approach of building a winning team given this season’s setbacks.