Kraken coach Dave Hakstol’s future on hold until evaluation is complete

SEATTLE – Kraken general manager Ron Francis said Monday that an evaluation of coach Dave Hakstol and his staff is ongoing and added that he won’t have an answer on their future until that is complete.

Francis told reporters during a season-ending news conference at the Kraken Community Iceplex that the process is the same as he’s used in the team’s previous three seasons. That will include meetings with the coaching staff and the franchise’s management team.

“This was kind of a unique season and that’s what we’ve got to dig through,” Francis said. “There were a lot of things that affected our chemistry as a team and as a lineup.”

Among those are the following:

• Injuries to key players throughout.

• Young prospects not being quite ready to enter the lineup and push other players for spots the way they were later on in the season.

• A virus that ran through the locker room at the tail end of the team’s 11-0-2 streak in January, causing them to lose eight of the next 10 contests.

When asked whether he could confirm Hakstol would be back next season, Francis replied: “You’re going to read into it one way or the other, but this is the process we do every year. And that’s what we’re doing right now.”

His decision not to give Hakstol a vote of confidence is intriguing, given the team awarded him a two-year contract extension last summer.

And it will undoubtedly lead to speculation the Kraken are waiting to see whether other coaches with teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs would be available to take over behind the bench. Chief among them is Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, who is in the final year of his deal and has yet to sign an extension.

Brind’Amour, a former teammate of Francis who worked with him in the Hurricanes organization, was sought out by the Kraken three years ago just before signing an extension with Carolina.

Boston Bruins assistant coach Joe Sacco could be of interest, given he was among finalists considered for the Kraken job before Hakstol was chosen in June 2021.

There’s also the team’s AHL coach Dan Bylsma, a former Stanley Cup -winning head coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He has guided several of the Kraken’s upcoming prospects, but is preparing the Coachella Valley Firebirds for the AHL playoffs.

There is recent precedent for teams leaving coaches in place while awaiting others to become available. The Nashville Predators fired John Hynes on May 30 last year, the day before naming Andrew Brunette to the position.

Brunette served as a New Jersey assistant coach last season and was approached about the Nashville job after the Devils were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs on May 11 by Carolina.

One danger of the Kraken moving too quickly one way or another on the Hakstol decision is they need to have somebody ready to replace him. Brind’Amour could easily re-sign with Carolina while it’s as yet unclear whether Byslma would want to return to the NHL given the rather comfortable situation he enjoys with Coachella Valley.

A plethora of NHL coaching vacancies and others still might come open – including the lucrative Toronto position, should Sheldon Keefe lose his job if the Maple Leafs are again eliminated early – and lure top candidates away from considering the Kraken. There would be no use letting Hakstol go if the Kraken aren’t assured they can land somebody better.

As Francis alluded to, hockey evaluation can take time to do thoroughly, especially when injuries and other factors are taken into account.

The Kraken finished this season with a 34-35-13 record, with 12 fewer wins and 19 fewer points than the 100 posted last season – when the team reached Game 7 during the second round of the playoffs.

They scored one goal or fewer in five of their first six games and won only three of the opening 10, something Francis admitted “was not really what I wanted to have from our guys coming in” after repeated messaging about how the season would be tougher to repeat following the playoff run.

“I think in some regards they heard that,” he said. “But I don’t know if they necessarily believed it.”

After hanging in the playoff hunt until early March, the Kraken endured their second eight-game losing streak of the season. They won just six of their final 20 games after March 5 – four against teams among the NHL’s three worst – and scored one goal or fewer in 10 of those contests.

The team’s offense ranked fourth worst in the league with an average of 2.61 goals per game.

“The big difference this year is that we couldn’t score like we did last season,” Francis said, adding the Kraken were the only NHL team to miss the playoffs despite finishing top 10 in most defensive categories. “I think we were first in shooting percentage last year, this year we’re 28th. We were fourth in goals for last year and this year we’re 29th. So, that’s an area we may certainly have to look at and figure out why it didn’t happen.”

Francis revealed that the Kraken were dealing with injuries either not previously announced, or the severity of which went understated. The injury parade began with Brandon Tanev going down in the season opener and missing the next 12 games.

“Everybody has injuries and I’m not using that as an excuse, but last year our first major injury happened after the All-Star Break when (Andre) Burakovsky tore his groin,” Francis said. “Before that, we had guys out for one game, maybe two games.

“This year, it was totally different in that regard.”

Jordan Eberle, he said, broke his hand in a fight with Logan O’Connor of the Colorado Avalanche in the season’s fourth game and wasn’t completely right again for six weeks. Not long after, Eberle suffered a deep gash from a skate blade cut in practice and missed a few games.

Eberle during that period had a noticeable early scoring slump before righting himself again.

And defenseman Vince Dunn suffered what Francis called a neck injury when slammed into the boards from behind by Martin Pospisil of the Calgary Flames on March 4. Dunn appeared in just two of the team’s final 21 games, but Francis said he should be fine for the start of next season.

As, he hopes, the team will be as well. Francis plans further evaluations with coaches and ownership the next two weeks before going about implementing any changes decided upon.

“Certainly, we want to get back to the full identity we had last year,” he said. “And being a team that, when people talk about us, they say we play hard.”