Seattle’s new general manager, Jason Botterill, met with some 400 Kraken season ticket members Thursday in the first of a series of video calls available as a benefit of being a season ticket member. More than a dozen fans posed questions during the 45-minute discussion, which was hosted by Kraken Hockey Network hockey host Ian Furness, who weaved in some questions of his own. Botterill covered a lot of ground, and all on the call got to know the new GM better. But here’s some highlights – and insights – into summer moves ahead, including how the search is progressing for a new head coach:
That Last Thing First: What About the New Coach Search?
Furness, acknowledging there is a lot of speculation in the media about Seattle’s candidates for the vacant job, asked, “How far along in the process are you? Have you gotten to the point where you actually offered a job to anybody?”
Botterill: “It's very similar when you get to the trade deadline, right? ... I think probably five percent of all rumors are actually true. It's difficult from that standpoint, but especially this year. There were some candidates out there with whom I have ties from my previous stops in Pittsburgh or Buffalo. Sometimes names are associated with that. But no, we have not offered the job to anybody at all yet. We feel very comfortable with our process.
“It's a really enjoyable process. It certainly takes a lot of time, and it's a challenge with amateur scouting meetings going on [all scouts are in Seattle this week] and amateur games still going on out there ... You go through an interview process, you are blown away about how many talented coaches there are out there, with their different viewpoints of our team, what they would do, how they see their style of play, their ideas. It's very educational from our standpoint. You love those conversations.
“Part of it is the one-on-one interactions with these candidates. But it's also trying to find out more information from background checks, such as talking with different players, talking with different staff members. We have a great resource in that we are an expansion team, right? We brought in a lot of different people from different organizations. They have resources, they have touchpoints with some of the candidates ... we're narrowing the process here. We're very excited to name the new head coach here very soon.”
Looking for “CEO of the Locker Room”
In a post-session conversation with Botterill, I asked, “Beyond the on-ice system of play, it must be important for you to evaluate how that coach will deliver on getting buy-in from players and build a team-first culture?”
Botterill: “It's a huge part of just coaching. It's the relationship building. You have to communicate with all of your players. You have to communicate with your staff. The days of a coach coming in, yelling at the team and then storming off? Long gone. You have to have constant communication with your players. I think it's important that it doesn't just always come from the head coach. The coach has to delegate. The coach has to make sure his assistants are interacting non-stop with the skills coach and strength coach so all are on the same page, delivering the same message to the players. You're looking for someone to be the CEO of the locker room.”
Scouting the Kraken Pro and Amateur Scout Meetings
Botterill: “We had our pro scouting meetings [in early May], went through that whole process of putting our list together for possible free agents [that can be signed starting July 1. And we started talking to our pro scouts about possible trade candidates on different teams. [Botterill later noted the Kraken hold extra draft choices, including two first-round picks from the Yanni Gourde/Oliver Bjorkstrand trade that could be used in a deal.]
“This week, we had our amateur scouts in town. We have amateur scouts all over the world, across North America and Europe. We have three in Sweden, one in Finland, and one in Russia. They have been working nonstop over the last eight or nine months, evaluating 17-year-old players. They’ve got all that knowledge, bringing it in here to Seattle for meetings throughout the week. It's a difficult process, but we're trying to get our draft list together here. There are a lot of discussions, a little bit of heated discussions once in a while, because our scouts are passionate about their own players. But we have a list in line by the end of the week. Then a week from now, we go to the NHL combine in Buffalo, have more interviews with the prospects, plus do some physical testing there, all to build up to the draft in late June.”
