As Kraken Are Learning, Firing A Coach Can Be Messy Business

Early in what promises to be a challenging off-season, the Seattle Kraken have already skidded into a messy pothole.

The kerfuffle involves conflicting stories for the reasons behind the dismissal of coach Dave Hakstol.

Now, the Kraken bus will certainly resume its spring-summer ride, because the route has mandatory stops ahead: hiring a new coach, signing RFAs, replacing unsigned UFAs, selecting future Kraken at the NHL Draft, assessing potential trades, enticing free agents, and holding prospect development camp.

But for the moment, national media and the organization are engaging in a distracting "they said - they didn't say." Here's the positions staked out by the two camps.

Media

Let's remember that ESPN's Emily Kaplan isn't the only reporter saying friction between players and the former coach influenced GM Ron Francis' ultimate decision to make a change.

“There are important players on the team who said, ‘I’m not coming back if he’s here,'” Renaud Lavoie said on French-language TVA Sports.

Kaplan, on an ESPN pregame show: "Ron Francis did not want to make this move. I was told at the exit meetings, a handful of players, and pretty significant players, made it clear to management, 'I don't want to play on this team in the future if Dave Hakstol is the coach.'"

Reasons To Believe Reports: Kaplan and Lavoie are veterans, well-respected and well-sourced. They have nothing to gain by spreading incorrect or unverified information.

Reasons To Be Skeptical: Neither reporter was present during the exit interviews. Since the phrase they quoted is almost identical, it could have been created by someone in the organization with an agenda.

Kraken Organization

General manager Ron Francis made this rebuttal to Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times : “Zero players issued any ultimatums of any kind regarding the coach. That I can assure you. No one sits there asking them ‘What did you think of the coach?’ That’s not what these meetings are there for.”

TSN.ca added this comment from veteran Kraken forward Jordan Eberle, who signed a two-year contract extension earlier this year.

"Talking to a lot of guys, I know we all had different opinions, but by no means did anyone have an ultimatum that if (Hakstol) was still there, then they wouldn’t play."

Reasons To Believe Organization: Francis was in the exit interviews. Eberle, as a member of the team's leadership group, would have a better handle than non-players about the sentiment "in the room."

Reasons To Be Skeptical: If there was player-coach tension, it's not in the organization's interest to admit it publicly. And even if such sentiments weren't shared in exit meetings, that doesn't mean they weren't expressed to Kaplan and Lavoie.

Maybe all this is mere annoyance - more of a speed bump than a pothole - but who likes speed bumps?