Seattle Kraken's Top Trade Candidates Heading Into 2023-24 Season

The Seattle Kraken has as much depth in every position as any team in the league, but they lack the star power just yet. They were a playoff team in 2022-23 and scored a lot of goals, but they made very few moves. They are sticking with the plan of not moving too quickly to be a top team, but want their young players to grow and have a long lasting impact. To make room, there might be some trades this season.

Jaden Schwartz

Jaden Schwartz has been underappreciated for most of his career and was great on the St. Louis Blues. He has always struggled with injuries, and as he gets older, his effectiveness is starting to drop a bit. As I noted, the Kraken have lots of younger talent they would like to see succeed in the near future including players like Eeli Tolvanen, Shane Wright, Tye Kartye, and more. The team has a number of veterans on it who fill the middle of the lineup. Sooner or later one or two will have to be moved out. My pick would be Schwartz. He has three years left at $5.5 million AAV, but some of that cap hit might have to be retained in order to save some assets.

Chris Driedger

The Kraken have three goaltenders this season with Chris Driedger back and ready to contribute. He returned last season and played AHL games, but that was because Philipp Grubauer is the team's starter and Martin Jones was having a solid year in the win category. This season Driedger has to compete with Joey Daccord for a spot as the backup. Whoever wins, Driedger is still the obvious choice that Seattle would like to trade. He has a cap hit of $3.5 million AAV, which is too high. At least the contract is over at the end of the season. It might take trading him and an asset for a bit of an upgrade at another position at the trade deadline.