Jack Adams Award for coach of the year had been decided to be given to Seattle Kraken coach Dave Hakstol for the year 2022-23. He got fired less than a year ago for receiving a contract extension. He finished 19 points in 2023-24 but missed the playoffs by 17 points.
This season got started with a 13-game point streak, other than this he also had also got eight-game winless streak and a winning streak of nine-game around the Winter Classic and one other game slide in March.
General manager Ron Francis said in a statement that, “We seemed to be up and down moreso this year than we had been.” The move of the coaching has been called a difficult decision by Francis. “They worked hard for him. We just didn’t get he results that we wanted,” Francis said.
They started a search for a new coach. Hakstol was then selected as the first coach of Kraken. They entered the league in 2021-22 as the NHL’s 32nd team and finished 27-49-6 for last place in the Pacific Division. They improved by 40 points last season, finishing with 100 points, in order to clinch a playoff shot in their second season.
“We had a real good season last year, probably better than we expected, and our staff did a good job and they got rewarded for it,” Francis said. “This season didn’t go as well as we hoped and then you got to look at things and make decisions at the end of the season.”
The Kraken rewarded Hakstol last summer with a two-year contract extension through 2025-26. Seattle, though, finished 34-35-13 this season. The Kraken also said assistant coach Paul McFarland, who oversaw the NHL’s 17th-ranked power play, won’t be back next season.
Hakstol is the third NHL coach in the history who got fired in the season, joining the Buffalo Sabres’ Don Granato and the San Jose Sharks’ David. The Sabres hired Lindy Ruff as coach.