The Seattle Kraken have recalled forward Andrew Poturalski to the NHL lineup, while sending down the rookie duo of Shane Wright and Ryan Winterton. Both Wright and Winterton appeared in three games with Seattle this season, with both players going without a point and recording a -1.
Seattle will now look to Poturalski to provide a spark. The 29-year-old centerman currently has seven points through 10 games in the AHL. It’s a slight step down from the scoring pace he recorded last season when he tallied 42 points in 38 AHL games. He also added 12 points in 16 playoff games. Poturalski signed with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2016, following the end of the University of New Hampshire’s season. He’s an undrafted free agent who’s spent much of his career in the minors, although Carolina did provide him with four NHL games over his seven years with the club. He recorded two assists and a -4 in those games but is still looking for his first NHL goal. Poturalski was also briefly a part of the Ducks organization from 2019 to 2021, before returning to the Hurricanes depth charts and then signing with the Kraken last summer.
The Kraken are currently facing injuries to Jordan Eberle and Andre Burakovsky. Eberle is nearing a return to play, finally shedding his no-contact jersey at practice, but Burakovsky is still out long-term. The winger is expected to return in December, after sustaining an upper-body injury early in the season.
This move also rejoins Wright and Winterton with Coachella Valley, where both players have had success through the early season. Wright has recorded six points in seven AHL games, while Winterton has five points. This is Winterton’s first season of professional hockey, after playing in the OHL last season, while Wright appeared in 39 pro games between the NHL regular season, AHL regular season, and AHL playoffs last year.
I was at Monday’s loss to Colorado; I’m beginning to think Kraken’s coach has forgotten the development side of the game, especially in his useage of Berniers, Wright & Winterton. It was an unfortunate turn of luck to make the playoffs last year, because there’s a serious drought of skill with this squad. They’ll get some good opportunities in the next few years to mine the draft for some, & hopefully Francis is wise enough to peddle players for picks at TDL time…
Matty is averaging 9 seconds less a game this year and he’s definitely struggled. I would attribute that more to the injuries and line juggling they’ve had to do so far. The problem for Wright is he hasn’t shown much when given the chance and for his development it feels like they’ve decided it’s better for him to play full minutes in Coachella rather than 7-9 minutes in Seattle on the 4th line.
Poturalski has a wicked shot. Glad he’s getting a look, though it doesn’t particularly fill me with confidence it’ll translate into wins for the team. The whole forward corps is a big mess for sure.
No guarantee he gets into the lineup. Clearly Eberle is close and for some reason Bellemare isn’t listed on this article as injured but he was banged up recently but before that he was an integral part of the PK and that 4th line was playing as well with him in the middle.
If anyone actually watched the games Wright and Winterton played with Seattle, they would see they both played very well. Still it’s better to let them see more minutes in CV. Shane just turned 19, he will be fine, Winterton looks like he has a good future as well. The Kraken look like a team that is 3 to 4 years away from being a perennial powerhouse, but until then last year was probably an outlier
This. Oh and Bellemare and Eberle are both back tonight and Poturalski isn’t in the lineup.