Kraken general manager Ron Francis addressed the local media on Monday afternoon at Kraken Community Iceplex, following his decision to relieve head coach Dave Hakstol of his duties. While none of what Francis said was particularly surprising, we did take away that this was a difficult decision for the always cautious and guarded GM, and we aren’t convinced he wanted to make this move but may have felt he had no choice based on how the season played out. Francis indicated that he didn’t make his final decision until Sunday and met with Hakstol to inform him on Monday morning in Seattle, callin ..read more

The Seattle Kraken have relieved Dave Hakstol of his head coaching duties, the team announced on Monday. “I thank Dave for his hard work and dedication to the Kraken franchise,” said Kraken general manager Ron Francis via a press release. “Following our end-of-the-season review, we have decided to make a change at our head coach position. These decisions are never easy, but we feel that this is a necessary step to help ensure our team continues to improve and evolve. Dave is a good coach and a terrific person. We wish him and his family all the best. We will begin our search for the Kraken’s n ..read more

I assure you, there will be extensive analysis of the Seattle Kraken’s performance throughout the 2023-24 season in the coming days, weeks, and months. We’ll delve deeper into what went wrong and speculate on offseason plans starting this week. My mind is filled with topics to investigate and evaluate. Each investigation takes me down a different rabbit hole, and these don’t always yield findings worth sharing, so it will take me time to get through these. In the meantime, I thought I would wrap up the season with a final ‘Monday Musings.’ Injuries Injuries were mentioned a couple of times dur ..read more

Welcome back! We’re continuing on with our end-of-season Kraken Roundtable series, which we launched last week. This week, we’re getting a bit more tactical with our discussion to understand the missteps of the Seattle Kraken in 2023-24 and to look ahead to the offseason.  In this one, Blaiz Grubic, John Barr, and Darren Brown teamed up to give their thoughts. Enjoy!  What went wrong Darren – I’m going to get a little “hot takey” with this one, but the obvious issue for the team was scoring. We’ve talked ad nauseam about how the fourth line took a step back, but as the offensive woes ..read more

The Seattle Kraken will have a new TV broadcast home for the foreseeable future, the team announced Thursday morning. After three seasons with ROOT Sports as the flagship television network for the team, the Kraken will partner with TEGNA (KING 5 and KONG) in a “multi-year agreement.” All games that haven’t been picked up for national coverage will be viewable on KONG, and a handful of games will also be simulcast on KING 5. Additionally, the team has entered into a new first-of-its-kind partnership with Prime Video, which will allow streaming of all locally broadcasted games to Prime members ..read more

Hi all! Darren Brown here. Our wonderful photographer, Brian Liesse, graciously put together a collection of his favorite photos from the 2023-24 season, and we are thrilled to share them with you here. Please note that these photos are property of Sound Of Hockey and cannot be reused. Enjoy ..read more

If you were expecting fireworks from the Seattle Kraken’s end-of-season locker cleanout days, you may have been disappointed. While there were plenty of interesting tidbits to be gleaned from what was said by the players and head coach Dave Hakstol on Saturday and general manager Ron Francis on Monday, no official bombs have been dropped at this point. Coming in, we were at least half expecting some sort of big personnel-related news, seeing as things went sideways for this club, which couldn’t score its way out of a paper bag and finished 19 standings points worse than last season. But, the a ..read more

The Everett Silvertips were going to need quite the miracle to claw out of the 3-0 hole they dug for themselves against the Portland Winterhawks. Portland’s endurance would reign superior in Game 4 on Friday, as a furious attack in the second and third periods with five unanswered goals was too much for Everett to overcome. The Winterhawks would wind up with a 5-0 win and take the best-of-seven series 4-0. Portland will begin the Western Conference Finals on Friday night in Prince George, B.C., facing the Cougars for the right to go to the WHL Finals. Quick and easy work for Portland… Games 1 ..read more

Welcome to the new Sound Of Hockey Kraken Roundtable series. During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, we’re planning to produce several collaborative discussions that reflect on the Kraken’s regular season and look ahead to the upcoming offseason. This first installment, featuring Blaiz Grubic, John Barr, Cameron Riggers, and Darren Brown, serves as our immediate reaction to the conclusion of the 2023-24 season. What was your highlight of the season?  Blaiz – The Winter Classic was my highlight of the season. I actually had low expectations for the Winter Classic going into it, but I really enjoy ..read more

After enduring two rather uninspiring Seattle Kraken games this weekend, I didn’t have it in me to spend the time putting together my typical verbose narrative on the last week of Kraken hockey. To fill the void, I am going to dig into something that has been troubling this team all season: the lack of goal scoring. The scope of this analysis is limited to aggregated team data and not individual player performance. I will spend some time examining the players’ performances in a future article, but for now, let’s explore to gain a deeper understanding of where this team has seen drops and try t ..read more