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.
“Just looking at the season, I thought we were a little more inconsistent than we had been,” Francis said in meeting with the media Monday afternoon at the Kraken Community Iceplex. “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.
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.
Hakstol’s firing comes just 10 months after he was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year and given a two-year contract extension. This marks the first time two of the three Jack Adams finalists have been fired the next season as Lindy Ruff — from the same small Alberta village of Warburg as Hakstol — was dismissed by New Jersey but has since been hired by Buffalo.
Francis did not immediately name a replacement coach, saying a search is underway. He also said the team’s exit interviews with players had little to do with the final decision — despite media speculation some expressed dissatisfaction.
“I think you’re careful on exit interviews,” he said. “I think you talk about things. But that wasn’t what we based this decision on.”
Francis added that he evaluated coaches daily throughout the season. And there were things he saw about the team’s inability to avoid prolonged slumps that concerned him.
“We seemed to be up and down,” he said. “You can justify the start of some of the (losing) stretches with injuries or illness or what have you. But we just seemed to be up and down more so this year than we had been.”
Francis evaded a question about what features he’ll seek from any new coach, saying he didn’t want it misconstrued as criticism of Hakstol’s shortcomings.
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.”
Those above Hakstol in the organization apparently felt a change in coaches was one of those things.
How far up the organizational ranks this decision went in addition to Francis is unclear, though Kraken ownership and executives were not happy with the team tumbling from contention with a month to go. The timing was terrible, given the first set of Kraken season-ticket plans set at three-year minimums were up for renewal, with irate fans taking to social media in bunches to state they were not re-upping.
Francis had alluded just last week to ownership and executives being part of the ongoing coaching staff analysis in the days after the 34-35-13 season ended.
The team’s second eight-game losing…
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