Head Coach Transition 2023

Lore & Background

When the Seattle Kraken took the ice for the first time in October 2021, Dave Hakstol was the man in the booth. He had been chosen to build the team's culture from scratch—no legacy, no established system, just a blank canvas in a city that had waited decades for a return to professional hockey. His calm, structured style became the franchise's initial identity: patient, defensively disciplined, and methodical in development.

By the end of the 2022-23 campaign, the front office had reached a decision that no expansion team wants to make in its second year. The chemistry between the coaching vision and the roster's trajectory had not aligned the way the organization needed. Hakstol, who had guided the team through its infancy, was released. For a fanbase still young and still building its rituals, the news felt less like a firing and more like a coming-of-age moment—the Kraken were no longer a project; they were a team that had to compete.

The transition also carried a broader narrative. Seattle's hockey history stretches back to the 1990s NHL expansion bid that ultimately went to Columbus. Every coaching change since 2021 is read through that lens of waiting, of almost-having. The 2023 shift was the first time the city's hockey story had a genuine 'next chapter' rather than a 'first chapter,' and that distinction shaped how fans, media, and the organization itself processed the change.

In Their Own Story

The practice rink at Climate Pledge Arena was empty except for the sound of skates carving fresh lines into the ice. A lone assistant coach pulled a stick from the rack, testing its flex against the boards. The whiteboard in the corner still bore the faint ghost of a power-play setup—Hakstol's last diagram, the one he'd drawn three weeks ago before the meeting that changed everything.

A janitor mopped the crease area, the squeegee leaving long silver trails across the blue paint. Through the glass, the stands were dark, the seats still holding the faint salt-stain of a thousand fans who had screamed themselves hoarse over two seasons. Somewhere in the building, a phone was ringing. The next coach would walk in tomorrow, or the day after, and the whiteboard would be wiped clean. But for one quiet Tuesday afternoon in June, the Kraken belonged to no one. The ice just waited, patient as the sea the city was named for, holding the shapes of every shift that had ever been played on it.

Reader's Guide

2021 – The Seattle Kraken begin NHL play as the league's 32nd franchise. Dave Hakstol is named founding head coach, tasked with building a team and a culture from zero in a city that had lost its professional hockey team in the 1990s.

2021-22 – The inaugural season. The Kraken establish their identity: structured, defensively sound, and still finding offensive rhythm. Hakstol's calm public persona becomes the franchise's face.

2022-23 – The second season brings higher expectations. The roster matures, but the front office and coaching staff grow to different philosophies about pace, development, and competitive urgency.

Summer 2023 – After the season concludes, the organization announces Hakstol's departure. It is the first head-coach change in Kraken history and a clear signal that the franchise is moving from 'building' to 'competing.' The search for a successor becomes the defining storyline of the offseason.

2023-24 – A new voice in the booth. The Kraken enter their third season with a fresh system, new expectations, and a fanbase that has fully committed. The transition, painful in the moment, becomes the moment the team stops being an expansion project and starts being a team.

Did You Know?

• Dave Hakstol coached the Kraken through both of their first two NHL seasons, making him the only head coach the franchise had experienced by the time of his departure.
• Seattle's original bid for an NHL team in the 1990s was ultimately awarded to Columbus, meaning the 2023 coaching change was the first 'next chapter' in the city's modern hockey narrative.
• The Kraken's name and identity were chosen to reflect the Pacific Northwest's deep ocean heritage, and the 2023 transition was framed internally as the team surfacing from its expansion 'deep water.'
• As an expansion team, the Kraken had no prior coaching tree, no established development pipeline, and no legacy players—making every leadership decision in those first three years disproportionately consequential.