Seattle Kraken

After just one season under head coach Dan Bylsma, the Seattle Kraken are making a change.

The team announced that Bylsma was relieved of his duties on Monday after the Kraken finished the 2024-25 season with a 35-41-6 record and failed to make the playoffs.

Hockey insider Frank Seravalli reported that in addition to Bylsma's firing, "there is no shortage of speculation in league circles" that general manager Ron Francis "will move to another front office position and assistant GM Jason Botterill will be promoted to GM."

Ryan S. Clark of ESPN added:

Bylsma spent two seasons as head coach of Seattle's AHL affiliate before being promoted to head coach of the Kraken following the firing of Dave Hakstol at the end of the 2023-24 season. Hakstol was the franchise's first head coach after it was founded in 2021 and led the team to a 107-112-27 record in three seasons with one playoff appearance in 2023 when it lost to the Dallas Stars in the second round.

Prior to joining the Kraken, Bylsma served as head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2008 to 2014 and the Buffalo Sabres from 2015 to 2017. He led the Penguins to a Stanley Cup title in his first year, but he never advanced past the conference finals after that. He missed the playoffs in both his seasons with the Sabres. He was also an assistant coach for the Detroit Red Wings from 2018 to 2021.

The Kraken will be hoping to find a new leader who can usher in an era of success as the franchise continues to establish itself in the NHL.

The Seattle Kraken have locked in Matty Beniers through the 2030-31 season.

The Kraken and Beniers agreed to a seven-year extension worth $7.14 million per year, the team announced Tuesday.

Beniers, the 2022-23 Calder Trophy winner and No. 2 pick of the 2021 draft, was previously a restricted free agent.

The 21-year-old recorded 15 goals and 37 points in 77 games for the Kraken last season.

Beniers spent most of the 2023-24 campaign skating on the Kraken's first line between veteran wingers Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle.

With Eberle signed through 2026 and McCann locked in until 2027, the extension will allow the Kraken to keep that trio together for a third straight season.

Beniers, a former University of Michigan standout, made his NHL debut in April 2022. He played 10 games for the Kraken that season before joining the roster full-time in 2022-23.

Because Beniers spent the first year of his three-season rookie contract at Michigan, the Kraken had just two full NHL seasons to evaluate when negotiating his extension.

In those two seasons, Beniers recorded 42 goals and 61 assists for 103 points in 167 career games, adding three goals and four assists for seven points in 14 games during the Kraken's two-round playoff run in 2023.

Beniers missed time due to an upper-body injury and saw a drop in his shooting percentage in 2023-24, a combination of factors that led to him falling short of matching the 24-goal rookie campaign that earned him the Calder Trophy.

He took a similar number of shots in both campaigns, however, so the Kraken have reason to hope Beniers' scoring will rebound as he looks to climb back over the 50-point threshold this fall.

Beniers' offensive production will be critical for the Kraken as the team looks to return to the playoffs for the second time in four years of franchise history with him as their first-line center.

The Seattle Kraken on Wednesday hired Jessica Campbell as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to be named to a full-time NHL coaching position.

Campbell spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach for the Kraken's AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds.

She will now rejoin newly hired Kraken head coach Dan Bylsma, whom she worked with during both her seasons with the Firebirds.

Campbell, 32, spent her playing career at Cornell, in the CWHL and representing Team Canada on international ice. She helped her country to a gold medal at the 2014 4 Nations Cup.

Campbell also helped Canada win silver at the 2015 IIHF Women's World Championships and contributed to the Calgary Inferno's trip to the 2016 Clarkson Cup.

After her playing career, Campbell served as a coach in Germany's top pro league with the Nuremberg Ice Tigers.

Campbell became the first woman to be an assistant coach for a men's team at the IIHF Men's Ice Hockey World Championship in May 2022 when she worked behind Team Germany's bench. There she was focused on special teams and player development, per IIHF.com's Andrew Podnieks.

Two months later, she was named the first female assistant coach in AHL history ahead of Coachella Valley's debut season. She helped manage the Firebirds' power play (h/t TheAHL.com's Patrick Williams) as the team went to back-to-back Calder Cup finals in its first two seasons in the league.

Campbell has also played a role in player development, including hosting half-hour skill sessions before Firebirds practices, per Ryan S. Clark of ESPN.

After she worked with undrafted forward Tye Kartye on his skating during his rookie 2022-23 season, Kartye was named the AHL's most outstanding rookie and earned a spot on the Kraken roster for the 2023-24 season, per Williams and The Score's Jolene Latimer.

Bylsma has also credited Campbell for her work developing Kraken prospects Shane Wright and Ryker Evans.

Campbell additionally has NHL coaching experience after working with the New York Rangers' prospect development camp ahead of the 2022-23 season.

The Kraken's power play ranked 17th in the NHL with a 20.7 percent success rate in 2023-24, while the team's overall scoring rate of 2.61 goals per game ranked 29th. Seattle will hope Campbell can begin improving the power play while helping develop young offensive talents like Matty Beniers as the Kraken look to build toward playoff contention this fall.

The Seattle Kraken officially have a new bench boss.

Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff reported that the Kraken are set to introduce Dan Bylsma as the franchise's second-ever head coach during the team's scheduled press conference on Tuesday.

Bylsma has eight years of head coaching experience within the NHL, most notably with the Pittsburgh Penguins. His tenure lasted six seasons in Pittsburgh and he helped steer the franchise towards a Stanley Cup victory in 2008-09. He also served as the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres for two seasons.

In addition to his NHL head coaching experience, he also served as the head coach of Team USA at the 2014 Olympic Games. He currently serves as the head coach of the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the AHL affiliate of the Kraken. The Firebirds are notably still playing as the team has reached the Western Conference Finals of the Calder Cup playoffs.

His tenure as the head coach of the Penguins was very successful as he guided the franchise to a 252-117 overall record. Pittsburgh made the playoffs in every season he was behind the bench, although the team never reached the Stanley Cup Final again after that first season and only reached the Eastern Conference Finals one additional time.

Still, he won the Jack Adams Award as the best coach in the NHL in 2010-11 and was considered a hot commodity when the Sabres vacancy opened up. While his tenure with that franchise was not as successful, it could be labeled a trend as it was in the midst of the Sabres current 13-season playoff drought.

He will get a Kraken team that exceeded expectations in 2022-23 and reached the Western Conference Semifinals but underachieved in 2023-24 and finished with a 34-35-13 record.

It's also the youngest franchise in the league after beginning play in the 2021-22 season as an expansion team. Bylsma will be tasked in helping the development of young pieces like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright while also trying to help the team make strides within the Western Conference.

After falling short of the playoffs this year, the Seattle Kraken have decided to make a change.

The team announced on Monday that head coach Dave Hakstol has been fired after three seasons. Hakstol was the team's first head coach when the franchise was founded in 2021.

Hakstol coached the Kraken to a 107-112-27 record over three seasons, including a 34-35-13 finish to the 2023-24 campaign. He led the team to a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2022-23, where it fell in the Western Conference semifinals round to the Dallas Stars in seven games. He was one of three finalists for the Jack Adams Award that year.

"I thank Dave for his hard work and dedication to the Kraken franchise," Kraken general manager Ron Francis said in a statement. "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 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 next head coach immediately."

Francis also announced that assistant coach Paul McFarland won't be returning to the Kraken next season. The GM indicated last week that changes were coming to Seattle.

Hakstol is now the second NHL head coach to be fired after the regular season. He joins David Quinn, who was fired by the San Jose Sharks last week.