On the eve of the anniversary of the biggest playoff triumph of his NHL career, Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol was called in to a Monday morning meeting and told he won’t get another shot at the franchise’s next postseason berth.
Kraken general manager Ron Francis fired Hakstol, 55, exactly 12 months, less one day, after his Game 7 opening-round triumph on the road against the Colorado Avalanche that gave the team and its coach their first NHL playoff series win. That victory led to increased expectations for the Kraken’s third year, in which they fell well short by missing the playoffs with 12 fewer wins and 19 fewer points than a season ago.
On Monday afternoon at the Kraken Community Iceplex, Francis said in a meeting with the media that “just looking at the season, I thought we were a little more inconsistent than we had been, we had a few too many losing streaks. And losing streaks of significant numbers. And we just felt it was time to try a new voice”.
Kraken assistant coach Paul MacFarland, primarily in charge of the power play, was also let go in what continues a potentially major offseason reboot for the entire organization as it strives for added relevance within a crowded local sports market. Just last week, they announced they’d parted ways with ROOT Sports to produce their own television broadcasts next season for distribution over “free” Tegna-owned stations in three states, including KING5 and KONG here in Seattle.
Further, a separate deal with Amazon Prime enables members to stream more than 70 Kraken games shown on those TV stations within the same Washington, Oregon and Alaska territories. The hope is the new approach garners the team more fans.
After a season-ending road victory against Minnesota on April 18, Hakstol said, “now we have to take a step back and make sure that we do everything that we can to make sure that we’re not in this situation a year from now”.
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