The skinny<\/p>\n
Potential unrestricted free agents: Jaden Schwartz<\/a>, F; Eeli Tolvanen<\/a>, F; Bobby McMann<\/a>, F; Jamie Oleksiak<\/a>, D; Matt Murray<\/a>, G\u00a0<\/p>\n Potential restricted free agents: Jacob Melanson<\/a>, F<\/p>\n Potential 2026 Draft picks: 8<\/p>\n What went wrong<\/p>\n Scoring issues: The Kraken are among the lowest-scoring teams in the NHL, averaging 2.78 goals per game. Their leading scorer is 35-year-old forward Jordan Eberle<\/a>, who has 55 points (26 goals, 29 assists) in 77 games. Forwards Matty Beniers<\/a> and Chandler Stephenson<\/a>\u00a0are next with 48 points (20 goals, 28 assists) in 79 games and 48 points (16 goals, 32 assists) in 77 games, respectively. Seattle needed to score by committee to be competitive, which is difficult to maintain throughout the season. It hung around the playoff race for a good portion of the season with balanced scoring but fell off the pace down the stretch. The Kraken lost six straight (0-5-1) from March 28 to April 7, averaging a League-low 1.67 goals during that stretch, and fell out of the race. \u00a0<\/p>\n Penalty killing troubles: Seattle struggled short-handed and have lowest-ranked penalty-killing unit in the League at 71.6 percent, including 67.7 percent on the road. The troubles on the penalty kill are magnified when considering the Kraken are the fifth-least penalized team in the League. They have been short-handed 208 times but have allowed 59 power-play goals. Seattle could not take advantage of the fact it has been one of the more discipline teams in the League this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spinning wheels: The Kraken have a number of young, talented players on their roster, but they have not been able to consistently improve. Beniers won the Calder Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top rookie in 2022-23 but has been unable to match his production since then, when he had 57 points (24 goals, 33 assists) in 80 games. The No. 2 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, Beniers has 48 points (20 goals, 28 assists) in 79 games this season. Forward Shane Wright<\/a>, the No. 4 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, had a breakout season with 44 points (19 goals, 25 assists) in 79 games last season, but has just 26 points (11 goals, 15 assists) in 72 games. Tolvanen, who was claimed off waivers from the Nashville Predators on Dec. 12, 2022, had 41 points (16 goals, 25 assists) in 81 games in his first full season with Seattle in 2023-24 but has 36 points (12 goals, 24 assists) in 75 games this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The skinny Potential unrestricted free agents: Jaden Schwartz, F; Eeli Tolvanen, F; Bobby McMann, F; Jamie Oleksiak, D;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-602383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}