GREAT NEWS: The Kraken coaching search yields a new name.

This summer, Todd McLellan should be added to the roster of potential Kraken coaches. He and options for internal promotion The current favorites to be named the team’s second head coach are Dan Bylsma and Jay Leach, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on the “32 Thoughts” podcast on Wednesday.

The Kings let McLellan go in the middle of the season, so he’s available. Along with former Blues coach Craig Berube, he is regarded as one of the two finalists for the coaching position with the Maple Leafs.

After Dave Hakstol played the team’s first three NHL seasons behind the bench, Seattle fired him. After winning their first-ever playoff series, the Kraken signed Hakstol to a two-year extension last summer, which was scheduled to begin in 2024–2025. However, with a 34–35–15 record this year, they were once again eliminated from the postseason picture.

McLellan will remain in the Pacific Division, where he has spent his entire head coaching career, if he is hired for the position. McLellan has made three stints with the Sharks, Oilers, and Kings. In 1,144 regular-season games, he has a record of 598-412-134, good for a.581 points percentage. Since leaving San Jose, he has only triumphed in one playoff series: an Edmonton team first-round victory over the Sharks in 2017.
He can have a group like the one he had in Los Angeles with the Kraken. Although they lack the explosive offensive potential of players like Anže Kopitar, Kevin Fiala, or Adrian Kempe, they do have a strong defense group that plays in front of occasionally strong but inconsistent goalie and good scoring depth distributed across all four lines. With a.916 SV% in 50 games since taking over as Seattle’s starting this season, the younger Joey Daccord is hoping to disprove that final claim.

After managing a contender in San Jose and failing to lead Edmonton to the playoffs on a regular basis in the early years of the Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid period, McLellan did well in Los Angeles to steer the team out of a rebuild. Since the pandemic, the Kings have placed third in the Pacific in each of the three seasons; although, this year’s performance was aided by interim manager Jim Hiller taking over after the halfway point. Despite leading Los Angeles to a 16-4-3 record in their first 23 games of the season, McLellan was fired after the team went on a 4-8-6 slump between Christmas and the All-Star break.
Leach has been an assistant with the Kraken since their founding, and his name has been mentioned in relation to a few other openings this summer. AHL Coachella Valley’s head coach since 2022–2023 is Bylsma, who won the 2009 Stanley Cup as head coach of the Penguins. In his first two seasons, Bylsma guided the team to a 94–32–18 record.