Kraken Bench Boss
A day after the club announced his two-year contract extension, Seattle Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol talked about getting the deal done and looking forward to training camp in the fall.
“For myself and for our staff, we take pride in the opportunity to continue working towards building and continuing in the right direction,” Hakstol said Thursday morning. “I’m really grateful for that opportunity, number one, myself, my family, we love the opportunity to be part of the community here in Seattle and to be part of the Kraken organization. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to continue building off of what we did last year.”
Outside of the extension, there was no other news related to coaching. Hakstol did praise his assistants once again and reiterated that his entire staff is returning.
We’re less than two months away from players beginning informal skates, a rookie camp, and the start of training camp itself.
“I really tried to leave guys alone here, for five, six weeks, and now as we’ve turned into July I’ve started talking and communicating with the guys a little bit more,” Hakstol said. “I really want our guys to have a sense of pride in what they were able to accomplish last year and what we were able to build … but also the part that is really important is that guys are really disappointed in losing Game-7 in Round-2, and that combination, my hope is we come into camp with our feet on the ground, a highly motivated group, and a group that understands each other a little bit better than we did at this time last year.
“I expect the competitiveness of camp to be excellent. I think everybody saw a noticeable difference in the level of camp last year from year one, I expect that level to rise again a little bit this year. One of things that I’m excited to see is some of the competition from youth within the organization. We saw a little bit of that last year, you’re going to see a continuation of that.”
Seattle’s first preseason games occur on September 25th with split squad matches against the Flames taking place simultaneously in Calgary and at Climate Pledge Arena. The Kraken open the regular season on the road against the Vegas Golden Knights on October 10th. The home opener is one week later.
A Wild Big Rig
Seattle Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak is known as “Big Rig” to his teammates and to fans in Seattle, but he’s not the only well known “Rig”. Patrick Maroon has been skating around with the moniker for many years, to the tune of ten full NHL seasons and three straight Stanley Cup championships from 2019 through 2021.
Maroon won it all with current Kraken players Vince Dunn and Jaden Schwartz with the St. Louis Blues in 2019 and then personally repeated twice more with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
NHL.com reporter William Douglas tells us in a feature why Maroon was a key acquisition for the Minnesota Wild back on July 2nd. His championship pedigree is a solid addition for a club that always seems to have trouble getting over the next hump.
The franchise has never matched the success it found in its third ever season, 2002-’03, when it won two rounds and reached the Western Conference Final. The grand total of victorious playoff rounds since that season? Two more, that’s it.
Despite making the playoffs in ten of the last eleven seasons, the Wild haven’t won a round since 2015.
What Maroon lacks in points these days, 15 of them in 80 games for the Bolts last season, he brings in physicality and leadership.
ICYMI:
— Zany Kraken Social Media; Jones Floats
— Seattle Kraken of the Future: Oscar Fisker-Mølgaard
