Shane Wright’s tenure with the Kraken hasn’t gone quite as well as he or the team would have hoped.  Now, it appears his time in Seattle may be coming to an end.  Wright’s agent Kurt Overhardt told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that the team has agreed to try to move him:

I can confirm that we have had positive conversations with GM Jason Botterill, and he has agreed to move Shane this summer to a team in need of a top young centre.

Botterill declined to comment on the report while Friedman noted that other league sources have suggested that there’s an agreement between the team and Wright’s camp to work on a deal but no firm guarantee a deal will happen.

The 22-year-old entered his draft year in 2022 as the consensus projected first-overall pick.  However, he wasn’t as dominant as expected in the OHL (though he still managed 94 points in 63 games) and ultimately slid to fourth overall, where Seattle scooped him up.

Wright played in eight NHL games in each of his first two seasons; in doing so, he didn’t activate the first year of his entry-level contract.  He went back to junior in 2022-23 and, when eligible, Wright was assigned to AHL Coachella Valley for the bulk of the 2023-24 campaign where he had 22 goals and 25 assists in 59 games as one of the youngest players in the league.

But that offensive success hasn’t carried over to the NHL just yet.  2024-25 was Wright’s first full NHL campaign and he had a solid showing, notching 19 goals and 45 assists in 79 games.  He was largely used in a middle-six role, often anchoring the third line where he struggled at the faceoff dot, winning just 44.4% of his draws (though that’s fairly common for rookie centers).  It wasn’t a flashy year but it seemed like a good start.

Things went in the wrong direction last season, though.  Wright saw his output drop to 12 goals and 15 helpers in 27 games while his faceoff rate dropped below the 40% mark.  His usage was largely the same as he averaged a little under 14 minutes per game after being just above that the year before.  His stock has dipped as a result.

Having said that, 22-year-old centers still on their entry-level deal with the draft pedigree Wright has are hard to come by, especially in a market where any help down the middle is pricey.  With that in mind, Botterill should be able to elicit a quality return for Wright’s services, as long as he’s open about different types of returns.

While Overhardt is hopeful of Wright landing with a team that will use him in a second-line role, those types of teams may be more of the rebuilding type that can afford to give the extra developmental runway.  But while Seattle is hoping to turn things around to get back into the playoffs, the types of teams that will likely have Wright slotted in that high on their depth chart probably don’t have the type of win-now talent that Botterill would prefer to get in return.  If he’s willing to accept more of a futures-based return (draft picks or young prospects), that could boost the number of suitors for Wright.

With the UFA market not really having too much in the way of impact centers available, the only other ways to address it are a trade (or a high-priced offer sheet).  Trades at this time of year aren’t typically pressure-packed in terms of getting it done quickly so this is a situation that could take some time to get resolved.  But as things stand, it looks like Wright could be getting a fresh start over the coming weeks or months.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.