With the preseason winding down and almost all the training camp cuts in the rearview mirror, the 2024-25 Seattle Kraken have mostly taken shape. It’s quite clear who will be between the pipes, who will defend the blue line and who the forwards will be. It is therefore time for the final, mega season preview. We’ll keep things simple – with a dash of mirth – by predicting two possible outcomes: the team’s best and worst-case scenarios.
Best Case Scenario Arguments
Beniers, McCann and Company Bolster Offense
There are no two ways about it. Seattle’s attack last season was defective. It went beyond not scoring many goals (2.61 per match, 29th league-wide). They didn’t even shoot the puck at the net very much – 2,347 total shots, no better than 26th. Completing the trifecta of mediocrity was a 9.1% shooting efficiency, which landed them in 29th.
If things go well, then the forwards who made headway two seasons ago revert to baller status. Jared McCann, Matty Beniers, Jordan Eberle, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Jaden Schwartz were all 20-goal scorers. McCann was a true threat, leading the team with 40 goals.
Montour and Stephenson Prove Doubters Wrong
It was said all offseason: how could general manager (GM) Ron Francis commit to such an awful pair of free agency deals by signing defenseman Brandon Montour and forward Chandler Stephenson to long-term deals? They’re on the wrong side of 30 and there have been some holes either in their game or their health lately.
If the upcoming season goes well for the Kraken, it doesn’t take a degree in hockey science to guess that strong, healthy seasons are required from both. Montour has been paired with Adam Larsson during camp and in preseason matches. As the months go along they form an insurmountable wall as the second defensive pairing, repelling anything that comes their way.
Related: More Seattle Kraken Season Preview Articles
Stephenson, whether playing with McCann and Eberle, Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen or even Andre Burakovsky, has a season to remember. He shatters the 60-point plateau for the third time in his career, reaching 75.
Climate Pledge Arena Is a Fortress
A good team needs to defend home ice. It’s already tough to win away from home. The least a club can do is make visiting sides feel uncomfortable when they take to the ice. In 2023-24, the Kraken were a disappointing 17-18-6 at Climate Pledge Arena. In 2022-23, the season they earned a playoff berth, they were a far superior away side, posting a resplendent 26-11-4 road tally to a decent if unspectacular 20-17-4 at home. We don’t need to get into the 2021-22 maiden campaign, which was simply bad all around.
In a nutshell, through a trio of seasons, the Kraken have never been an impressive home team. That needs to change. If the club can hold its head above water on its travels, great. But solid efforts at home are a prerequisite to being a fearful franchise.
Climate Pledge becomes a fortress. Opposing teams quiver and quake when the PA announcer yells “It’s time to release the Kraken!” and the home crowd goes wild during the opening ceremony. The arena’s calling card is its dedication to renewable energy and crushing the spirits of any who dare oppose the Kraken.
Joey Daccord Is the Real Deal
Netminder Joey Daccord came out of seemingly nowhere last season when usual starter Philipp Grubauer went down with an injury in December. The 28-year-old was, at the time, a total non-entity. In four seasons with the Ottawa Senators and Kraken, he had participated in 19 games. What’s more, he sported dreadful goals-against average (GAA) and save percentage (SV%) figures – 4.30 GAA and .850 SV% in 2021-22. Oof.
Related: 3 Potential Trade Destinations for Goaltender Jeremy Swayman
In 2024-25 he shows the hockey world that he is the real deal. In fact, he plays so well that he becomes the obvious number one, with Grubauer mostly backing him up. Seattle makes the playoffs and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Joey is the man to shield the net in April and beyond. How you doing?
That’s a Friends refer- you know what, never mind.
Ultimate Best Case: 2nd Round of Playoffs
It happens every year. A club that failed to leave a major impact in the previous campaign blows people away the following season. The 2022-23 Vancouver Canucks weren’t much to write home about and in 2023-24 won the Pacific Division and reached Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
At the very least head coach Dan Bylsma and his ensemble can ask themselves with a degree of legitimacy: why not us?
Reaching the Western Conference Final would be ambitious, especially with the likes of the Edmonton Oilers, Dallas Stars, Canucks, and Colorado Avalanche standing in their way.
A realistic scenario sees the Kraken earn a postseason berth finishing third in the Pacific, probably behind the Oilers and Canucks. They take out Vancouver in a first-round upset before battling valiantly in a Round 2 defeat. OT heartbreak in Game 7. The Kraken head back to its waters for the summer, furiously concocting its revenge for 2025-26.
Worst Case Arguments
Seattle Gets the Bad Dan Bylsma
Most hockey fans remember how Bylsma arrived in Pittsburgh in mid-2008-09 and coached the Penguins and a young Sidney Crosby to Stanley Cup glory. It was a great story.
But the Kraken get the Bylsma of the Buffalo Sabres era. It was believed he would be the one to get that moribund franchise out of its miasma of mediocrity. They missed the postseason in both 2015-16 and 2016-17, although neither campaign was an utter disaster (81 and 78 points, respectively). The problem, one Bylsma alluded to in his introductory press conference this past summer, was that he was not as good at building relationships back then. The headlines were disastrous, like this one from NBC Sports back in 2017 about the Jack Eichel situation.
Bylsma’s connection with his roster is average at best and completely flounders once the losses pile up. Shouting matches echo through the corridors of Climate Pledge Arena.
Neither Grubauer nor Daccord Are Dependable
The big question surrounding Daccord is whether 2023-24 was a one-hit wonder. We’ve seen them before. Think of Jim Carey in the mid-1990s. Daccord gets too comfortable as Seattle’s newfound darling, starts letting some softies in and loses his confidence. In September 2025, he is in a training camp battle for the backup position with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Grubauer, well, he is who he is. We’ve written about him before. He is an “almost man.” He almost got the glory but was on the bench when the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup in 2018. He was almost the solution in Colorado but was shown the door in the summer of 2021, the offseason before the Avalanche made good on Nathan MacKinnon’s potential and won the Cup. Grubauer is Grubauer. He’s fine. But he’s not that guy.
Montour and Stephenson are Gassed, Injury-Plagued
Hockey is a tough sport. There is a reason why the expression “the wrong side of 30” is used. It wasn’t birthed because of the realities of hockey, but they’ve easily kept it alive.
Montour, in addition to being 30, missed time in 2023-24 due to injuries. He’s also played in back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals when the Florida Panthers lost to the Golden Knights in 2023, then beat the Oilers last June. He might be a little gassed.
Likewise for Stephenson, who was pivotal in Vegas’ Cup run two seasons ago. That team’s 2023-24 was up and down. Controversial management decisions, lack of consistency, injury problems. Stephenson, rather than feel rejuvenated, needs 2024-25 to get the physical and emotional fatigue out of his system and is not the great leader Seattle thought it signed. On a December night when he’s named the game’s first star, he feels a funny sensation in his right shoulder as he tries to “yeet the fish” into the Kraken home crowd. He’s out for a month.
The Kids Are Not All Right
This one would be a sharp knife twist. Beniers’ 2024-25 makes pundits and the fanbase wonder if his Calder Trophy-worthy 2022-23 was a one-hit wonder. He never rekindles that offensive flourish and is a defensive liability all season. Why is he getting paid $7.142 million annually for one good campaign he had as a 20-year-old?
Shane Wright, after much hoopla since June 2022 when the franchise drafted him in the first round, never makes Seattle’s dreams come true. He doesn’t have the speed, touch, or physicality to make a serious impact. His minutes are restricted on the fourth line and he stares off blankly from the bench, bleary-eyed, on nights when the first line is hopelessly trying to make something happen in the third period of a 5-2 game.
Ultimate Worst Case: No Playoffs
The Kraken miss the postseason. Furthermore, they don’t come close, spending the final three weeks of the regular season showing up to games because their contracts demand it.
Seattle is bad but not awful enough to have a serious shot at the number one overall pick in 2025. They land somewhere in that awkward seven-to-10 range and make the best of what’s available after the teams ahead of them shed tears of joy because they’ve selected the new Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini.
And those are our predictions for the best and worst-case scenarios for the 2024-25 Kraken. Might any of those come true? We’ll find out over the next seven months if they miss the playoffs or more if they make that deep Cup run. There isn’t much time left, with puck drop against the St. Louis Blues less than a week away on Oct. 8.
