The St. Louis Blues and Seattle Kraken made some big — and somewhat controversial — offseason moves in an effort to get back to the NHL playoffs.
The teams will open the 2024-25 season Tuesday afternoon in Seattle.
Blues general manager Doug Armstrong employed the rarely used offer sheet this summer to acquire Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway from the defending Western Conference-champion Edmonton Oilers.
Broberg, a defenseman, was the eighth overall pick in the 2019 draft by Edmonton and Holloway, a forward, was selected 14th in 2020.
“It happens rarely because the moons rarely align for organizations,” Armstrong said. “It was an opportunity for us to stay true to our core values of what we’re trying to build right now and that’s putting players in that age bracket and it ended up working out.
“Building something that’s sustainable is what we’re trying to do here. Those two players fit perfectly into that.”
Both players split time last season between Edmonton and the American Hockey League.
“Yeah, for sure. I definitely feel I’m going to get more opportunity here in St. Louis,” Holloway said. “Edmonton has some pretty good star power up front, so it’s going to be near impossible to move those guys out of their spots.”
The Blues also added forwards Radek Faksa and Alexandre Texier in the offseason in a bid to boost an offense that ranked tied for 24th out of 32 teams in scoring last season.
Coach Drew Bannister begins his first full season behind the Blues’ bench after going 30-19-5 after replacing Craig Berube on Dec. 12.
Bannister will be without puck-moving defenseman Torey Krug for the season after ankle surgery, and forward Brandon Saad is expected to miss the opener for the arrival of his third child.
The Kraken, who made a surprise run to the Western Conference semifinals in their second campaign in 2022-23, regressed last season and fired coach Dave Hakstol. He was replaced by former Stanley Cup winning coach Dan Bylsma, who guided their AHL franchise in Coachella Valley to back-to-back trips to the Calder Cup Finals.
Byslma promises a more up-tempo attack.
“We’re going to be skating. We’re going to be up and down the sheet. We’re going to play with pace and speed,” said Bylsma, who won a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. “We’re going to be uber and ultracompetitive doing it.”
The Kraken signed center Chandler Stephenson and defenseman Brandon Montour, a pair of Cup winners, to seven-year contracts worth nearly $94 million in the offseason in an effort to boost an offense that was 29th in scoring last season.
“Last season wasn’t good enough,” said Kraken winger Oliver Bjorkstrand, the team’s All-Star Game representative. “You have a whole summer to enjoy, but also to think about last season.
“It’s a hungry group. Easily said, but you’ve got to go do it.”
The Kraken also expect forward Shane Wright, the fourth overall pick in 2022, to earn a full-time NHL spot this season, and for Matty Beniers, the 2022-23 Calder Memorial Trophy winner as rookie of the year, to bounce back from a sophomore slump in which he totaled just 15 goals and 37 points.
“I think the expectation is absolutely to be in the playoffs. Anything below that is a disappointment for our group,” Beniers said. “We’ve got some new guys around the room, but we’ve got a solid core group that’s been around for some time now. The new guys are only going to help us.”
–Field Level Media
