NOT GOOD: The Seattle Kraken coach search has landed him into problems
For hockey fans, it’s hard to beat May. There are somewhere between four and eight playoff series going on at once, and the rhythm of the schedule means teams play each other virtually every other night.
You can watch a few East Coast games in the late afternoon, then settle in for the West Coast tilts after dinner. And my family is glued to the television – we just need to figure out whether we are using the Max app to watch the Turner broadcasts or FUBO for ESPN.
The intensity is high, the hitting is violent, the mistakes are magnified, and the drama is unparalleled. There is simply nothing like watching hockey players who are intent on earning the toughest trophy to win in sports.
It would sure be nice to see the Seattle Kraken get back into this tournament. But at the moment, that feels a long way off.
Every one of the eight teams remaining has a star, if not a superstar, while Seattle is still waiting for its first. Each team remaining has an identity that it has built around. They have a mix of established veterans and young contributors. They may have flaws, but they do something else well enough to counteract them.
Oh, and they have one other thing in common that the Kraken do not:
They all have a coach!
Yes, the Kraken will have one by the time next season rolls around, and obviously a lot sooner than then. But I didn’t like the reports (from both Frank Ceravalli and Eliotte Friedman) this week that they had interviewed and offered former Canucks coach Rick Tocchet the job but that he was unlikely to accept (Tocchet went to the Flyers on Wednesday).
Tocchet joins Mike Sullivan (New York Rangers) as high profile names to come off the board, raising concerns established coached don’t have Seattle on their radar screens.
For some, that might be nothing more than location. But in a league that includes outposts like Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg, coming to Seattle doesn’t seem like nearly the stretch it is in other sports. It certainly isn’t about the money nor the commitment from ownership – this organization has both.
No, I would expect the biggest challenge would be convincing a coach that the nucleus is here for a playoff contender. If someone is going to win with this group, they are going to have to either be very patient while the young players in the farm system develop, hope that a team out there sours on a star player and is willing to deal them to Seattle, or be totally convinced they can get more from players like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright than we have seen so far in their careers.
Right now, none of those three options seem likely, let alone close to guaranteed.
My guess is that the path to success in Seattle lies in a longer, drawn out process of building the organization through the draft and accumulating young players until a few of them hit. If that is truly the strategy, and if it is truly difficult to lure a veteran coach here, I would expect the team to hire another coach from the college ranks. Someone who is known to develop talent.
University of Denver coach David Carle would have been the likely top choice if the Kraken were to go that direction, but he signed an extension last week amid buzz that he could jump to the NHL.
Regardless, plucking a coach from the NCAA might be the best path forward for this franchise. But it doesn’t make it any easier to watch these playoffs, feel the differences between the remaining teams and the one we watched all season, and hear that the top two coaches available this offseason aren’t particularly interested in coming here.
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