Kraken fire head coach Dan Bylsma after 1 season

Stephen Whyno · The Associated Press

· Posted: Apr 21, 2025 5:59 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

The Seattle Kraken fired manager Dan Bylsma connected Monday, ending his tenure aft 1 play that concluded acold retired of playoff contention.

The Kraken regressed aft Bylsma took implicit for Dave Hakstol, who coached them for their archetypal 4 seasons of beingness and got them to the playoffs successful 2023. They finished 35-41-6 for 76 points — 20 backmost of the 2nd and last wild-card spot successful the Western Conference — aft 81 the erstwhile season.

"We convey Dan for his committedness and the vigor helium brought to our enactment implicit the past 4 years astatine the NHL and AHL levels," wide manager Ron Francis said. "After a thorough reappraisal of the play and our expectations for adjacent twelvemonth and beyond, we've made the hard determination to determination successful a antithetic absorption down the bench. Dan is simply a large idiosyncratic and a respected coach. He played an important relation successful the improvement of galore of our young prospects and was a large portion of our aboriginal occurrence successful Coachella Valley. We sincerely privation him and his household thing but occurrence moving forward."

Bylsma had been promoted from wrong aft coaching the American Hockey League's Coachella Valley Firebirds to back-to-back Calder Cup Finals earlier losing to Hershey. He won the Stanley Cup arsenic Pittsburgh's manager successful 2009 and remained with the Penguins done 2014, winning the Jack Adams Award arsenic manager of the twelvemonth successful 2011.

This was his 3rd head-coaching occupation successful the NHL aft an ill-fated two-year stint with the Buffalo Sabres from 2015-17. Bylsma is the 3rd manager fired successful arsenic galore days aft Anaheim moved connected from Greg Cronin and the New York Rangers dismissed Peter Laviolette.

Francis has been successful complaint of hockey operations astir since the Kraken's inception and got a three-year hold successful 2023 aft they reached the 2nd round. Reports surfaced astir Bylsma's firing that Francis mightiness beryllium moved upstairs with adjunct Jason Botterill taking implicit arsenic GM, though the team's announcement made nary notation of that shuffling.

The beforehand bureau has large tasks this off-season: uncovering a manager and repairing a roster that lacks elite talent.