Seattle SPORTs Now

  Seattle Kraken general manager Jason Botterill met with the local media Wednesday at the Kraken Practice Facility at Northgate and said he plans to be `very aggressive’ during the off-season. The Kraken looked headed towards a playoff berth until they weren’t. The team boasted a 10-5-2 record in the month of January where at one point they were only three points behind the top spot in the Pacific Division. On the year, Seattle was in a playoff spot for 117 days. But when the team returned from the Olympic break in February it appeared to be lacking a spark and fell all the way down to 13 th place in the16-team Western Conference. Ironically, the Pacific Division was relatively weak this season and a top three finish would have placed the Kraken in the playoffs regardless of point totals. ``Our power play dropped off in March and April,’’ said Botterill, as the team went through a 5-14 streak after the Olympics. ``I feel our future is bright, but we’re not where we want to ...

                                Ron Francis (above) with Jordan Eberle and his family After five years with the Seattle Kraken- four as general manager and one as president of hockey operations- Ron Francis and the Kraken have decided to part ways. In some ways, this has been the most disappointing season in the five-year history of the Kraken. At the Winter Olympic break, Seattle was in a playoff position in the Pacific Division. Since the season resumed, Seattle’s NHL entry has only won five of 19 games. -``No one is satisfied,’’ said Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke. ``We have not delivered on the promise of this team. We're going to go back to the model we started with. We're going to have a GM who makes the decisions." Francis has made the decisions since before the Kraken even had a nickname. He took over in July 2019 and selected the players in the 2021 NHL expansion draft. While the Kraken didn’t achieve...