The Seattle Kraken elected to go with Joey Daccord as their backup goaltender to Philipp Grubauer to open the season as part of a handful of decisions to set their roster for Tuesday’s opener against the Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights.
Daccord, 27, earned the backup role to Grubauer over veteran Chris Driedger behind a strong season last year for the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the American Hockey League. Daccord had a .918 save percentage and 2.38 goals against average in 38 games played for the Firebirds last season.
Daccord’s performance took another step forward in the playoffs. He had a .926 save percentage and 2.22 goals against average in 26 postseason games as Coachella Valley lost in overtime of Game 7 of the Calder Cup Finals to the Hershey Bears.
Daccord also posted a 2-1-1 record in five games played for the Kraken last year. In the four full game played, Daccord had a .900 save percentage with a 3.14 goals against average.
Seattle re-signed Daccord to a two-year deal worth $1.2 million a year at the end of June.
The backup goalie spot was the most intriguing roster battle for the Kraken during training camp. Driedger returned to action late last year from a torn ACL sustained in the Gold Medal Game of the World Championships for Team Canada in June 2022.
Driedger, 29, had an .899 save percentage and 2.96 goals against average in 27 games played for the Kraken during the team’s debut season in 2021-22. While he didn’t play for Seattle last year, he appeared in 14 games for Coachella Valley and had a .908 save percentage and 2.61 goals against average.
Daccord’s play earned him an opportunity in the NHL full-time. Assuming he sticks as Grubauer’s backup, it will be his first chance to get an extended run at the top level. He appeared in eight games for the Ottawa Senators in 2020-21 with six starts, which is his most extensive season of NHL work so far.
“We expect Joey to be an essential part of that tandem as they work to provide good goaltender, playoff level goaltending for our team throughout the year,” head coach Dave Hakstol said on Monday.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Kraken roster decisions were pretty straightforward.
Defenseman Ryker Evans, 21, and center Shane Wright, 19, are two young prospects that showed they have the ability to play at the NHL level this season. However, there isn’t a convenient spot for them on the Kraken’s active roster at the present moment. Rather than being scratches most nights and watching from the press box, the two were among players sent down to Coachella Valley to begin the season where they can play and continue to develop.
Defenseman Cale Fleury, 24, had that unenviable role last season where he was with the NHL team but not in the lineup often. He appeared in just 12 of 82 regular season games for the Kraken last year. Seattle didn’t want a repeat of that with Fleury, Wright or Evans and they were all sent down.
Fleury, Driedger, and center John Hayden all had to be placed on waivers in order to join the Firebirds. All three cleared without being claimed and will remain in the organization. Those three and the reassignment of Wright and Evans to the AHL were the final roster moves made.
“I’m pretty sure that everybody that’s in the room right now will be part of it, part of our opportunity for success throughout the year,” Hakstol said ahead of the team’s final preseason game in Edmonton on Friday.
Also passing through waivers to Coachella Valley were forwards Cameron Hughes, Kole Lind, Max McCormick, Andrew Poturalski, Devin Shore and Marian Studenic, and defenseman Connor Carrick, Mitch Reinke, Jimmy Schuldt and Gustav Olofsson.
Tye Kartye – the breakout performer of last postseason – breaks camp on the NHL squad. Kartye didn’t play in a single regular season game for Seattle last year but was called up to fill-in when Jared McCann went down with a concussion in Game 4 of the series with the Colorado Avalanche.
Kartye had three goals and two assists in 10 games played for the Kraken and seamlessly jumped into a premier role alongside Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle.
Kartye won’t be playing that high up the lineup for the Kraken out of the gates this year. He’ll be on the rebuilt fourth line with center Pierre-Édouard Bellemare and winger Brandon Tanev. Also, free agent addition and Spokane native Kailer Yamamoto will be an option for the grouping as well depending on the night.
The Kraken are keeping just one extra forward and one extra defenseman on their roster to being the season with only 22 of 23 available roster spots utilized. Kartye/Yamamoto are the extra forward with Jaycob Megna as the seventh defenseman.
By not using the final roster spot, the Kraken will save money against the salary cap each day of the season they are under the cap. In doing so, that would give them more money available to work with to possibly add to their roster before the trade deadline on March 8. Of course, injuries happen and the space likely won’t remain vacant all year, but it’s a bonus for Seattle when they are able to take advantage of it.
Seattle Kraken Projected Lineup:
Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz – Alex Wennberg – André Burakovsky
Eeli Tolvanen – Yanni Gourde – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Tye Kartye – Pierre-Édouard Bellemare — Brandon Tanev
Kailer Yamamoto
Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Will Borgen
Brian Doumoulin – Justin Schultz
Jaycob Megna
Philipp Grubauer
Joey Daccord
