Saturday: The Kraken announced that Lind has been returned to the Firebirds. He played 5:59 on Wednesday against Los Angeles, his first NHL game of the season.
Tuesday: The Seattle Kraken have announced that they’ve recalled forward Kole Lind from their AHL affiliate on an emergency basis but did not go into detail as to the reason why. The Kraken lost several forwards to injury in their 4-3 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars last night but little is known about the circumstances surrounding Lind’s recall.
Lind is in his third season in the Kraken organization but has not dressed for them in an NHL game since the 2021-22 season. In 30 career NHL games split between the Kraken and the Vancouver Canucks, the 25-year-old has two goals and six assists and is -5.
The former second-round pick was the Kraken’s expansion pick from the Canucks in the 2021 expansion draft and has been a good offensive player for the team at the AHL level. This season with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Lind has posted five goals and 16 assists in 23 games.
In last year’s Calder Cup playoffs, Lind had a coming out party in which he showed glimpses of the kind of player Seattle was hoping they were getting when they took him in the expansion draft. Lind had nine goals and 22 assists in 26 AHL playoff games as he helped the Firebirds to within a game of the Calder Cup championship. He provided some big moments for the team including a three-point night in game one of the Calder Cup finals.
Bellemare was put on the IR per the NHL media site and there’s the holiday roster freeze that commences tonight.
I’m gonna say this has to do with the Christmas transaction rules. Teams can exceed the 23 player limit if they have the cap space – the Kraken do – but it has to be ahead of the transaction freeze (midnight tonight). Also, because they are injury depleted, he can be called up on emergency and play nine games on emergency and then another nine and still not need waivers to be sent back down. Not a lot of mystery around the circumstances or the why of this transaction.
For clarity sake… the Kraken are forward depleted and needed to make this move ahead of the transaction freeze. Pretty obvious.