Dave Hakstol head coach of seattle Kraken, just signed his resignation papers after it was confirmed that…

A year after being recognized as one of the NHL’s best coaches, Dave Hakstol was ultimately held accountable for the Seattle Kraken’s lackluster performance.

After the third-year team experienced a major setback after making the playoffs in their second season, Hakstol was fired on Monday as the Kraken’s head coach.

As Seattle concluded the regular season with 100 points and advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in just its second year, Hakstol was a nominee for the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year.

However, the Kraken fell short of expectations this season and, following a disastrous start, spent the majority of the season attempting to get back into the postseason. Seattle hampered the momentum the young team was attempting to establish in the newest hockey market in the league by failing to build on the success of that postseason run.

“No day is ever easy. Making a decision is never simple. It’s not easy to let go of a guy who is both a great coach and a great person, as Seattle general manager Ron Francis stated. “However, after examining our team and the season, I felt that we were a bit more erratic than we had previously been; there had been far too many losing runs, as well as some major ones, so we decided it was time to attempt a new voice.”

With two weeks remaining in the regular season, Seattle was officially eliminated from postseason contention after finishing 34-35-13 with 81 points, tied for fifth place in the Pacific Division.

Hakstol’s record with the Kraken in his three seasons as manager was 107-112-27. After Seattle advanced to the second round of the playoffs the previous season, he was rewarded with a two-year deal that kept him under contract until the 2025–2026 campaign.

“Last year’s season was excellent; it went far better than we had anticipated, and our employees performed well and were rewarded for it,” Francis remarked. “This season didn’t turn out the way we had intended, so at the end of the season, you had to assess the situation and try to make some decisions. We have arrived at that point in the day.

Less than a week after the season concluded, Francis hinted at potential changes by hesitating and stating that an analysis of the entire coaching staff was in progress in order to determine whether or not Hakstol would receive a fourth season.

After a week, Hakstol was no more. Francis said that Paul McFarland, the assistant coach, will not be coming back.

Seattle couldn’t sustain the kind of play that made them successful the previous year, and they also struggled to recover from serious early-season injuries to Andre Burakovsky, Brandon Tanev, and Philipp Grubauer. Due to a neck ailment, Seattle’s best defenseman, Vince Dunn, missed the most of the season’s play.

After an eight-game losing streak to begin the season, Seattle’s record was 8-14-7. However, a significant comeback in late December and early January put the Kraken back in the running for the postseason. However, the Kraken only finished 13-16-3 following the All-Star break, and any realistic hopes of making the playoffs were dashed on March 12 when they lost badly in overtime at home to Vegas.

Throughout the season, the Kraken struggled to score goals. Despite having a strong defense and goaltending this season, Seattle finished the league with the fewest goals scored (29), the highest shooting percentage (29), and the fewest power plays (18).

When Hakstol was appointed as the first coach in Seattle’s history, it came as a surprise. After two postseason appearances in his first three seasons as a coach in Philadelphia in 2015–16, his first NHL job got off to a great start. However, it broke down in the fourth season, and 25 games into that campaign, with the Flyers sitting at 8-11-6 and just 22 points, he was sacked.

Seattle had a difficult first season, between the demands of trying to replicate Vegas’s success from its expansion season and the COVID-19 limitations that hampered a large portion of that campaign. Seattle’s record in the first season was 27-49-6, but they turned things around in the second year. The Kraken finished with 100 points, defeated Colorado, the reigning champion, in the first round of the playoffs, and forced Dallas to a Game 7 in the Western Conference semifinals.