NHL Rumors: Surprising Trade Candidate Named From Seattle Kraken

In a turn of events that not many saw coming before the season began, the Seattle Kraken may be prepared to move on from former No. 4 overall selection Shane Wright.

Insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period suggested on the DFO Rundown on Wednesday that it could happen.

The Seattle Kraken are open to moving Shane Wright. They've been looking for a legitimate top six offensive threat, somebody capable of playing on the top line. And the sense that I'm getting is a willingness to move and package up Shane Wright in order to get that.

At this point, with his ice time dwindling this season, hitting rock bottom with only 9:57 TOI in the Kraken's 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins Monday night, the feeling might be mutual.

"I don't get the sense that Shane Wright is overly thrilled with his usage lately," Pagnotta said. "he wants to have more responsibility, he wants to have more ice time. He has to earn that as well, it just can't be handed to him. There's a little bit of disappointment there with respect to his usage, from his side of things.

"The sense I've gotten from talking to other teams around the league is that Shane Wright's name is starting to circulate... Seattle is willing to move him, but they don't want to get rid of him by any stretch – this isn't that. But this is trying to find that (big) fish that they can bring in, and you gotta give to get."

Shane Wright could be packaged to land Seattle a top-six scoring forward

On the 'big fish' front, the kind of player the Kraken are hoping to reel in is along the lines of a Jordan Kyrou, Pagnotta noted, as he reminded us that Seattle tried to land him from St. Louis last summer around the draft. The Blues are ready to do business, so Kyrou could potentially be attainable now.

Wright was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. But the 22-year-old center, in his second full NHL season, isn't quite having the impactful sophomore year that the team (or Wright) would have hoped. Coming off a 19-goal, 44-point rookie campaign, he has just seven goals and 17 points in 48 games this year, in 13:46 average ice time per night.