The Kraken have already made a multitude of staff changes this offseason, replacing nearly their entire coaching staff and naming Jason Botterill as the second general manager in franchise history. The moves aren’t stopping there, however.
According to a press release from the team, they’re also refreshing their player development staff. Former NHL defenseman Cory Murphy, who had worked with the team over the past two seasons as a player development consultant, has been promoted to director of the department.
Murphy replaces Jeff Tambellini, who had worked as Seattle’s director of player development since 2022-23. Tambellini was tabbed earlier this week by the Lightning as a new assistant general manager and director of hockey operations.
As the release states, Murphy’s work over the last two years has involved working with the team’s pool of defense prospects, which doesn’t include any blue-chip names but has a few intriguing projects. The club highlighted his impact on the development of 2022 third-rounder Ty Nelson, who had 32 points and a +17 rating in 72 games with AHL Coachella Valley in his first professional season in 2024-25. He’ll now have a broader range and influence throughout Seattle’s development ideology.
Seattle has also created a new title – Head of Player Strategy – and given it to 31-year-old Justin Rai, who has worked with the club as a consultant for the last three years. “My job is to be able to research the league, research our players and figure out the existing trends,” Rai said. “Most specifically, it is my role to be additive to Coach [Lane Lambert]’s staff, making sure players can better execute his structure at a higher level, staying on the same message as the coaching staff … I’m grateful for the opportunity and that the Kraken organization puts its employees in spots to succeed.”
How is that a guy who was in charge of the botched Shane Wright development and works for an organization that seemingly has no plan gets hired to be the director of hockey ops for a perennial Cup contender?
Is it just maybe because he’s been doing a great job in Seattle helping develop the future and they’re actually building something there rather than just creating content for the media?
Your comment is more of a strawman argument than a useful critique.
Do you actually know what a “straw man” argument is? The argument I’m refuting is the seeming confusion so many in the media seem to have about what the plan is in Seattle and the response to that is the elevation of someone central to that plan being a validation of that process. Please… fill me in on the “straw man”. If you want to translate it into a useful critique it would be – Tambellini’s promotion is a validation of the work he’s done and should help make it clear to all the folks in the media that can’t wrap their heads around the idea of drafting and developing talent in Seattle, maybe this helps them understand.
There was no argument in the article for me to dismiss in my post.